Of Caged Birds and Singing
by goodgirl275
Summary: A new girl appears in the Glade months before Thomas and Teresa appear. The Gladers try to figure out her purpose. When they find out what she's there for, things start to go very, very wrong. Starts happy then spirals into despair. Trigger Warnings: Insanity, self mutilation, death, hallucinations, unhappy ending, angst. Please let us know if we need additional tags.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER** : THE AUTHOR OF THIS FANFICTION DOES NOT OWN THE MAZE RUNNER SERIES OR ANY CHARACTERS IN THE FANDOM. IF YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE IT, IT'S PROBABLY THE PRODUCT OF MY BRAIN. THE MAZE RUNNER IS OWNED BY JAMES DASHNER.

* * *

Newt hated the Maze.

He hated it more than anything else in the world, and he couldn't even remember most of the world. He'd spent almost a year running through the maddening corridors, hating them every step of the way. Almost a year, and still no way out.

He pulled himself up on the vines coating the walls, hand over hand. Beetle blades were scampering around to his right and his left, but he didn't care. Not anymore.

This was the way out.

Newt stopped climbing, hanging on to the vines and looking back over his shoulder down at the ground. He decided he was about half-way up the walls. He stared at the rocky floor of the Maze. Was he high enough?

A wave of rage swept over him, so powerful that he wanted to scream. At the Maze, at the Grievers, and the beetle blades, at Nick, and the Gladers. He let go with one hand and let his body swing so he could see the bottom more easily. He pulled his legs up against the rock and grabbed the vines with both hands again.

The uncertainty that had weighed at him since he'd started climbing suddenly vanished. Newt let his hatred fill him up. It was better this way.

He screamed, letting out all the anger and fear that the Maze had made him feel. And then he jumped.

—

"Nick, let me go out there. Something's happened to Newt, I can tell."

"No. You know the rules. No one goes into the Maze except Runners."

"No, I know, I just—just let me go check, I'll make it back before the doors close—if I'm right, something's gone wrong, if I'm not, I'll come back and spend however long you want me to spend in the Slammer. _Please_."

" _No_."

"Nick, listen to me! He's hurt, he's in danger, you _have_ to let me go find him. _Please, if I don't, he'll die._ "

—

In the W.I.C.K.E.D. base below, a girl burst into the observation room.

"Send me up. Now." Her hands were balled into fists, her eyes red from tears that were still coming.

"No." No one even looked at her, except for Thomas and Teresa.

" _Send me up_!" she screamed at the back of a man. "It's what I'm supposed to do anyway, it's my whole purpose."

"We said we'd send you up at the year mark, and we're not there yet." He still didn't turn to look at her.

"You said you were sending me up because they needed hope!" the girl yelled. " _He. Jumped._ They need hope _now_."

"Sir, she's right," Thomas said. Teresa looked sharply at him, but he shrugged the look off. "We never expected _him_ to jump. They might need her sooner than we anticipated."

Janson was silent. The girl stalked up to him furiously and grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to turn around and look her in the eye, not caring how much of a mess she was.

" _He bloody jumped_ ," she said, her voice still raised and tense. Her heart was hurting for Newt. "He jumped, and _you. Could've. Saved him!"_ She straightened up, still crying, still hurting. "Send. Me. UP."

—

The Keeper of the Med-jacks had done the best he could for Newt's leg. He'd splinted it the best he could, it being a bloody mess. He'd somehow kept his head through the whole traumatic process and done as he knew was recommended for broken legs. He'd stayed with Newt all day, beating himself up that he couldn't do more. He knew he was getting no sleep that night.

No one would.

Newt was still unconscious.

When all of the beetle blades in the Glade snuck into his room in the Homestead, no one saw. One stayed upside down on the ceiling, its red light staring down at Newt. The W.I.C.K.E.D. scientist behind its screen changed its settings to x-ray and looked at the battered bones in the boy's body. Bruised bones everywhere, one fully broken in his leg, and a fractured rib. His ankle and foot had been practically shattered. The kid was lucky he'd landed like he had, or he could've died.

The other beetle blades scrambled down onto the bed the boy was lying on, until it was covered with little silver bodies, all sitting perfectly still. One by the boy's neck inserted one of its needle-like legs into his neck. Sedative. To make sure he stayed under.

The beetle blades went to work, crawling over the areas of the kid which had been injured, sticking him with needles to inject healing agents. Two silver agents curled around his head and injected him with something that could help his concussion. The largest amount of the little silver robots were pushing at his leg under the direction of the one on the ceiling, who could see it most clearly. The bones were coming back together slowly. A few beetle blades around his feet prodded with precision, nudging the bones back into place. If Newt had been awake, he would've been in agony.

The beetle blades' precision was amazing. The bones were in place very quickly, and the beetle blades froze perfectly still, their red lights searching for anything else the boy needed.

There wasn't anything else.

The beetle blades slowly crawled away and down the stairs, out the door of the Homestead, across the Glade, the only thing to give them away, their little red lights. The sea of beetle blades dispersed.

W.I.C.K.E.D. didn't want Newt to die.


	2. Meet Ellie

**Long-ass AN. Skip to line break if you don't want to read it.**

 **First of all, I am now sharing this account. I, Goodgirl275, did not write this. My friend is the true author and all credit must be given to where it is due. So, she gets all of the comments and any PMs we may receive.**

 **Next, she has several chapters written, but to prevent spamming the website, and to get as many readers as possible, we will stagger the updates. Yes.**

 **Finally, ... ... ... I got nothing. Please enjoy.**

 **PS - disclaimer applies to all chapters.**

* * *

Ellie woke up with a gasp. She sat bolt upright and stared into pure darkness. At first she wasn't sure whether her eyes were really open. Beneath her hands she could feel cold metal, and a loud grinding noise came from seemingly everywhere. The metal underneath her lurched upwards, and she was thrown back onto her elbows.

She didn't know where she was.

She hardly knew _who_ she was.

She couldn't remember anything except her name. Well, she knew she was a girl, but how _vague_ is _that_? She knew the world was out there. She could imagine listening to music on a palmphone, watching a musical or a play, taking strolls down a road. Loving a book. Hating a book. Having a cliché crush on the popular kid in school. Watching a movie. Daydreaming in class when you were supposed to be paying attention.

More things joined in with the stream of thoughts of things that were supposed to be _normal_.

But none of it seemed familiar.

And, from what she remembered, being trapped in a pitch-black metal elevator wasn't _normal._

The thought occurred to her that she might have been blind. There wasn't the slightest light source to be detected. She waved her hand in front of her face. Nothing.

The elevator hadn't stopped going up, but it hadn't lurched since the first one. Ellie got unsteadily to her feet, expecting the box to throw her off balance. Mercifully, it allowed her to stay upright. She extended her right arm as far as she could and couldn't feel a wall. She moved slowly, sliding her feet along the ground carefully. She was wearing shoes—that was good. Her fingers touched metal. Her head instinctively turned to look for it, but she still couldn't see.

A sudden claustrophobia clutched her. She wanted to scream for help, but she doubted any would come.

Was this a gas chamber? Was she inhaling toxic gases right now without knowing? Why couldn't she remember anything? Possibilities raced through her head, getting less and less possible as they went.

The chamber jolted still, and Ellie fell forward, but caught herself. She pushed herself up. Her upward journey seemed to have stopped. How long would she stay here? Forever?

 _Better not be bloody forever_ , she thought, surprising herself. Noises were coming from above her—voices? They got closer until they were right on top of her.

"Save me," she pleaded to them, barely a whisper.

A loud groaning of metal followed, and a line of light appeared in the roof of the box. She held up a hand to shield her eyes until they could adjust. Glancing up, she saw silhouettes lining the roof of the open box. The voices had died down into a stunned silence.

"A girl," said someone—a boy—quietly. Then louder, "It's a shuck _girl_."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ellie demanded, unsure of what the word _shuck_ meant. She took a few steps forward. Her eyes were adjusting slowly. She took her hand away from her eyes cautiously.

Mutterings were coming from places she couldn't see, up where the other people were, passing around that she was a girl. The murmurs started getting louder and more confused.

"A girl?"

"Why'd they send us a girl?"

"Why now? Why not ever before?"

"What's her name?"

"What's she look like?"

"Is she trustworthy?"

"Stuff it!" someone called over the crowd, shutting everyone right up. _(There's the man in charge_ , Ellie thought.) "Alby, throw her the rope."

"Yeah, yeah," came an irritated voice.

The rope came down swiftly. It was tied in a loop at the end, making Ellie first think that they intended to hang her. But it came down further, and she saw she was instead supposed to put her foot in the loop. She did, and was quickly hauled up. An asian kid grabbed her arm when she was near the edge and pulled her up.

She caught her balance and looked around. She was in the middle of a square of overgrown stone blocks. In front of her was the box in the ground she'd come out of.

A group of forty teenagers gathered around her, but none very near her, avoiding her like she was the plague. All staring at her like she was an alien. All teenage boys. _Why teenagers_? Ellie thought. Past them, green grass spread around in a huge area.

A farm was in one of the corners, surrounded by pens of animals. Another corner held something big that looked like a garden, and spanned out a long way. In another corner was a small forest.

Beyond that, the horizon had been cut off by huge slabs of gray. She turned around, and saw that she'd come straight from one box into another box. Walls of stone stretched impossibly up to the sky on all four sides. Comparatively thin openings stretched all the way to the top of each of them.

She stood, turning to look at each of the four walls in awe. These walls were huge, and looked like they'd been there for centuries. Vines spotted them in places. Past the openings she could only see more stone walls. _Trapped again._

"Bloody hell," she breathed, staring over the boys' heads at the monumental stone slabs.

"Sounds like Newt," someone said, the same accent as everyone else she'd heard except herself. She pulled her attention back to the boys. Some of them had gotten over the shock that she was a girl, and were inspecting her critically. Fighting her nervousness and the rising panic in her throat, she rotated to scan each of their faces. All of them were wearing normal t-shirts, jeans, and shoes, which was comforting, in a way. Not really.

One boy, who looked about eighteen, was standing nearer to her than the rest. His frowning eyes were dark, searching her for something she didn't understand. His skin was tan, and he looked kind of Native American. His hair was in braids, one resting on either side of his neck. His arms were folded firmly. He was heavily muscled and good looking.

"What's your name?" he asked, offering the slightest hint of a smile.

Ellie eyed him cautiously. "Ellie," she said after a pause. "Who're you?"

"Nick," he said, and although he still had an air of uncertainty, he was practically dripping confidence, the authority coming back into his voice. "Welcome to the Glade, Ellie." He stuck out his hand to shake hands, glancing around at the other boys. "You're the first girl here. Ever."

"Well, aren't I special," Ellie said with a trace of sarcasm, shaking his hand. _The Glade,_ she thought, trying to piece together everything. Nothing made sense about this. Despite Nick's friendly confidence, she was still scared and confused, and the terrifying sense of claustrophobia hadn't gone away. A million questions bubbled up in her throat, threatening to choke her.

"You got a lot of questions," Nick said, cutting her off. "We all did when we first came up. First, no, the rest of us can't remember anything either." He started counting on his fingers. "Second, no, we don't know who sent us here or why. Third, we don't know where this place is, but it's home and we call it the Glade. This is where your new life is gonna begin." He'd taken two of those questions right out of Ellie mouth.

He said the last one with a hint of finality, but someone called out, "You forgot 'Is this a prison?'"

"And 'Who are all of you?'" Another boy called.

"Right, right," Nick said, cutting them off. "We're the Gladers. You'll get to know all of us as time goes on. And, if this is a prison," he glanced around, _almost_ fondly, at the walls, "then I'd say it's a pretty nice one." He stared around at the Gladers around him, daring them to say anything else. "Anything _else_ I missed?"

"Are we counting when Frypan asked where the grub was?" The asian kid who had helped Ellie out of the Box had spoken up. A few scattered laughs and smiles swept through the Gladers, and he seemed pleased with himself.

"Bet Fry'd like a girl in the kitchens with 'im," someone else called, prompting more laughs. Ellie lips tightened. Of course a group of boys would make a sexist joke.

"You're hilarious," Nick said flatly, sending a look out across the Gladers that shut them all up. "Now, Ben, where are you?"

"Here," said a kid who had muscled arms. He was short and stocky, and had short blonde hair and a friendly smile. He pushed through a couple of boys, avoiding a black boy who was still staring intensely at Ellie, and joined Nick's side.

"Ben's the newest Greenbean apart from you, Ellie," Nick said, putting a hand on Ben's shoulder. "He's gonna show you around for the rest of today until I give you the Tour tomorrow. Try and slim all questions until you understand the kind of answers we'll give." Nick's thin smile was gone. "Right now, I'm calling a Gathering, effective immediately. Alby, go get Henry and Newt, will you?"

"Right," said the black kid.

"Newt might not be able to move," someone said as the black kid—who must've been Alby—turned to leave. "Henry says his leg's still messed up pretty bad."

"Then we'll have the shuck Gathering 'round his shuck bed," Alby shot at the kid. "We ain't never had a girl here before in the year we've been here. This could be groundbreaking."

"Alby's right," Nick said, calmly still in control. "Creators had to send her here for a reason. Someone go get Siggy, tell him we're gathering in Newt's room."

"You wanna take Fry away from his kitchen this close to dinnertime?"

" _Yes_. No questions. Do it. Now." Nick turned and walked away. Some other people broke away, too.

Ellie looked helplessly at Ben, who had watched the proceedings with interest. He noticed her stare and turned back to her. His smile returned.

"That's the first Gathering that's been called since I got here," he said with muted excitement. "But I dunno what the big fuss's about. The Creators had to send us a girl _sometime_ , right?" He realized Ellie had no idea what he was talking about. "Sorry, Greenie," he said. "Guess you don't know most of those words. After a month here you kinda get used to stuff being thrown around like that. Creators are what we call the people who send us up. _Someone_ had to build this place, you know?"

"Yeah, well, _why_ would anyone build this place, is what I wanna know. And why send a bunch of teenagers with amnesia up here?"

"Maybe we're all war prisoners, memories wiped so we won't fight back."

"Maybe," Ellie said, running a hand through her hair in frustration. "I wouldn't know. What did they mean, a 'Gathering'?"

"Ugh," Ben groaned. "You don't ask easy questions. Gatherings are like group meetings for all the Keepers to talk about important or weird stuff that's happened. And Keepers, Keepers are like," he struggled to find a good job description. "Keepers are like the leaders of different jobs. Like, you heard Newt mentioned? He's Keeper of the Runners. Or he was, before he fell and broke his leg. No—shuck, sorry. Bad example. You don't know what Runners are, do you?"

Ben wasn't very good at explaining things. But, he seemed like the only one who would at least try to explain, so Ellie just made herself be patient and listened.

Ben sighed and gathered his thoughts, running a hand through his hair and messing it up, only to smooth it down again like he'd done that a million times. "Okay. You heard Frypan mentioned, right? He's Keeper of the Cooks. Meaning, he's the best of the best of them. So, he's in charge of them, got it?"

"Yeah…" Ellie said. "What _are_ Runners, though? Apart from being people who run a lot."

Ben sighed. "Look, Nick'll explain everything to you tomorrow. Trust me, he's good at explaining things. I'm just here to get you situated—get you a bed, some food, and all that."

"Shuck that," said a voice behind her. A hand clapped down on her left shoulder, startling her. The asian teen who had helped her out of the box was there, grinning. "I'm a Runner, I'll tell her." Before Ben could say anything, he introduced himself. "I'm Minho." He took his hand off her shoulder so he could shake her hand.

"Ellie," she said, in a daze of confusion, taking his hand.

"So I heard," he agreed. He glanced at his watch. "Good, we can just make it. Come on, follow me."

He turned and started jogging quickly towards one of the walls. Ellie glanced at Ben, and they followed, trying to keep up to Minho's speed. Ellie noticed a wooden building on the corner of the square she'd previously overlooked. A couple kids were walking towards it and going in. Minho had slowed down, and was now doing an awkward side-gallop so he could point at it.

"That's the Homestead. Med-jacks tend to people in there, and the Gatherings are held in there." He turned and started running normally again.

"Where are we going?" Ellie asked Ben, who was running level with her.

"Every night, the walls close," Ben said. "Minho's excited about showing Greenies."

"What?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. Those big openings? They close every night, open every morning, like doors." Seeing Ellie look of disbelief, he added, "I'm not even kidding."

Minho had stopped. They were still a safe distance from the…doors. He waited for Ellie and Ben to catch up, and pointed out to the passageway beyond the walls.

"Out there," he said, looking Ellie dead in the eyes. "Out there is a maze. The biggest you've ever seen. Walls just as tall as the ones you see right in here. It's endless."

Ellie stared out into the passage beyond the walls, speechless. Why a maze? What was the point of sticking a bunch of teenagers in the middle of a maze?

"You asked what Runners were," Minho continued. "Runners go out there every day and try to solve the Maze. Runners have gotta be fast, strong, clever—not to brag, of course—they gotta remember their way out."

The words seem to lag as they traveled to Ellie brain. Something connected.

"Um—Alby said you guys had been here…almost a year…?"

"Yep." Minho stared out into the Maze. "Almost a year, and no one's solved it. Here, look. It's about to happen, in three, two, one—"

A earsplitting grinding noise started coming from the wall. Rock against rock, sparks flying, the gap in the wall started closing. Ellie threw her hands over her ears, but after realizing Ben and Minho hadn't done the same, she took them away and looked around. The other three openings were closing, too. Spikes on the closing side of the doors were going into slots for them on the stationary parts. Ellie shook her head. Impossible. How could that amount of stone move, seemingly on its own?

The grinding seemed to take forever. Sparks were flying from the ground under the huge doors. When the noise finally ceased, the path through to the Maze had vanished.

Minho turned to her. "And that," he jerked his thumb at the door, "is why being a Runner is very dangerous and not recommended."

"No one survives a night in the Maze," Ben said, and it sounded like a quote.

Minho nodded. "Right."

Ellie was speechless. She shook her head. This was too much. "I…I need a bit," she said finally.

"Come with me, I'll get you a bed," Ben said. "Then I'll leave you alone for however long you want."

"Thanks," Ellie said.

Ellie sat perfectly still in the sleeping bag Ben had set up for her. She was in a small lawn with a single, tiny tree in it. Lots of Gladers chose to sleep there, apparently. She was staring up at the darkened sky, as she had been doing for an hour. Ben had come to offer her dinner, but she'd rejected the idea. Her stomach was a tense, tangled mess of nervousness, confusion, and anxiety. It felt like she'd never relax again, and she couldn't even imagine eating right about now.

She'd been trying to make sense of everything. The walls, the Maze, the elevator she'd arrived in. The kids here acted like this whole thing was the most normal thing in the world. Except Ben. He seemingly understood how confusing everything was.

A clicking, scuttling noise near her made her turn her head. A red light was in the grass a few feet from her, pointing into her eyes. Frowning, she got up on an elbow for a better look. A silver cylindrical _thing_ sat in the grass, staring at her. It looked like a silver, metal centipede. Something was written across its back. Squinting, Ellie could make out _W.I.C.K.E.D._ spelled out on it.

"Oh, good," she murmured sarcastically to herself. "It gets better." The thing clicked and zipped away into the grass. An apathy washed over her. She knew she should probably be afraid of this little centipede thing, but suddenly she just didn't care. After today, nothing could faze her anymore.

A deep sadness entered her heart. Were they meant to stay in this place forever? She sighed.

"It's not as bad as it seems," Ben's voice interrupted her inner thoughts. He was dragging his own sleeping bag over to her. He dropped it a respectful distance from her. "I went through what you're going through, too."

He lay down. "Don't worry, really. There are friends here. I'll be your friend. Minho's a bother sometimes, but he's not so bad. Nick's usually a bit more cheerful than you saw today."

"Anyone know what they talked about in the Gathering?" Ellie asked.

"Not yet. Nick might tell you tomorrow, though, since you were the subject."

"That'd be nice."

"I hope you're not always this down in the dumps," Ben said, and even though Ellie couldn't see him, she could sense a smile in his voice.

"Yeah, thanks, I hope I'm not, too."

"There you go, there's some attitude. That's good. Now go to sleep, okay? Tomorrow everything starts fresh for you."

"I'll try."

—

Ben shook her awake in the morning.

"Wake up call, Greenie. It's breakfast time."

"My name's not Greenie," Ellie said irritably, but she wiped the sleep away from her eyes anyway.

"Call it a rite of passage," Ben said, pulling her up. "Everyone called me Greenie, too."

"Fine," Ellie decided. "What do I call everyone in return?"

"I dunno. Shanks, I guess. Call them whatever you want, though. They probably won't care."

They walked towards the kitchens, where Frypan gave them each a plate of eggs and bacon that Ellie took gratefully. Not eating dinner last night had been a mistake.

"So you're the girl we called a Gathering on," Frypan commented as he handed her the metal cup of water. The word that came to mind when Ellie tried to describe the guy was _fluffy_. He was a fluffy guy.

"I don't see another," Ellie replied affirmatively.

"Don't worry, not much was said," Frypan said reassuringly. "What was said, Nick will fill you in. Enjoy the Tour." He smiled, and Ellie smiled back as she followed Ben to a picnic table near the Homestead.

Ellie was sure she had never tasted anything as good as the food Frypan had given her. She chowed down and her food disappeared almost as quickly as Ben's did.

Ben was talking as she finished her bacon.

"This building's called the Homestead," he announced. "Not sure if I already told you that. But the Builders—that's my job—are adding onto it. We're trying to make another couple rooms on the back. Some kids sleep in there, so we wanted to give them some more room."

Ben was cut off by the doors opening loudly. Ellie stood, watching the one she had the best view of. Someone was standing just inside the doors, and as soon as they could get through, they squeezed through the gap and sprinted out of sight. _A Runner._

"There's one less Runner now Newt's been injured." Ben had to speak louder than usual to be heard over the doors.

"How'd this Newt guy get hurt, anyway?" Ellie asked, a little to quietly for Ben to hear her very well. He just shrugged.

The doors opened all the way, and Ben pointed Nick out, crossing past the elevator towards her. "Here comes our _honored_ leader."

"Stuff it, Ben," Nick called out, from far enough away that it was impressive that he'd heard Ben's comment. He got closer and gently smacked Ben upside the head, like he didn't quite want to hurt him. "Ready for your Tour, Ellie?"

"Sure," Ellie said.

"Good."

Nick started walking at a brisk pace. Ellie exchanged a nervous look with Ben, and hurried to catch up. "Come on then. We'll start with the rules. We haven't got many rules around here. Number one: Never, ever, go outside the walls. You have to be a Runner to do that, but we only need as many Runners as we have doors. Rule number two: Never, _ever_ hurt another Glader. There's few enough people to trust, we can't go ruining that with petty fights. Rule number three: Always do your part unless you are _physically_ incapable. I 'spect you've heard the name _Newt_ thrown around recently?"

"I thought you were talking about the salamander," Ellie joked, unsure of how Nick would respond.

Nick smiled. "Good to see you've got a sense of humor, Greenie. Nah. Newt was the best Runner we had, but he fell off trying to climb the walls. Says he was running from a Griever."

"Woah, wait—" Ellie focus snapped to that last word. "A Griever?"

"Yes, Greenbean, a Griever. Nasty shanks, them. Whoever stuck us here figured we weren't quite badly-off enough, so they decided to trap us here with some kind of half-metal, half-slug monster. If you ever see one, you'd better hope you can run fast, 'cause if you can't, you'll either get torn apart or _stung_." Nick folded his arms. "But I digress. I just meant to say that this Newt you've been hearing about got himself hurt, so he can't do any jobs right about now."

' _Not as bad as it seems,' Ben had said._

"Anyway, you got the rules down, Greenie?"

"Sure, yeah." But what had Nick meant by _stung?_

"Good. Now we can move on to the rest. _That_ ," Nick pointed to the elevator in the ground as they moved towards it, "we call the Box. Every week, supplies come up—water, some food, some extra clothes, whatever we need. Sometimes we even send down requests. They don't always come up, but we do get the occasional celebratory cake."

That sounded like a joke. Ellie narrowed her eyes at Nick. Was that a joke?

"Once a month, every month, we get a new Greenbean, like you are. We know they're coming when this big, loud, shucking alarm goes off everywhere. We only got guys up until you came."

They were standing over the Box at this point. Nick seemed to be waiting for Ellie questions.

"Have you guys tried going back down in it?"

"Of course," Nick said, almost offended. "That's one of the first things we tried. It won't go down with someone in it." He swung his hands together. " _So_. Deadheads, Gardens, Homestead, Bloodhouse." He pointed in each direction of the four sections. "Homestead, you've already seen. Little house over there. A few of us sleep in there, but not many. Med-jacks have a room there they tend to people in."

"Med-jacks," Ellie muttered. "Doctors, right?"

"Yep, just without the PHD. Homestead's where the Gatherings are held. Around the _back_ ," he flicked his hand to illustrate his words, "we've got a jail. We call it the Slammer. Someone breaks a rule, they spend some time in there, or they get Banished."

"Banished…into the Maze…?"

"Yes," Nick's face changed. A moment of the deepest sadness Ellie was sure she would ever see weighed him down. "We've only ever had to do it once. Pray to whatever deity you like that it never happens again. To you, or anyone else."

Ellie imagined what it would be like to be banished from the Glade. Forced to leave, watching the doors close from the outside. A vivid image came to her—standing on the rock floor of the Maze looking back into the Glade, seeing friends disappear behind a huge wall.

No one survives a night in the Maze.

She gulped. "I think I'll just follow the rules, thanks."

"Good choice, Greenie." Nick shook himself out of the memory and turned to the Gardens. "Gardens. Pretty self-explanatory. The Creators pump water in there, since it never, ever rains here. The Track-hoes work in the garden."

About half of the Gladers words were self-explanatory, and the other half were almost completely confusing. Why not just call them _gardeners_?

Nick had turned to the farmhouse. "We call that the Bloodhouse. It's where we raise animals—cows, sheep, pigs, the usual. The Slicers work over in there, raising them, cutting them up for Siggy. Do you like blood, Greenie?"

Ellie shrugged. "I can't remember being _overly_ fond."

"Well, if it turns out you do, you'll love being a Slicer." Nick turned to the last corner of the Glade, face solemn. Ellie followed his gaze. "Out over there is the Deadheads. That's where the graveyard is."

 _The graveyard?!_ "How many…" Ellie couldn't make herself ask it.

"How many kids are there in there?" Nick finished for her. "Six. Most of them were original Gladers. One was just a Greenie who couldn't take it…" Nick trailed off. "Poor shank," he muttered.

Ellie suddenly felt a sorrow for a kid she'd never even known, didn't even know the _name_ of. She glanced around at the Glade, all the kids milling around doing their jobs. As terrible being trapped here was, Ellie was sure she'd always be a firm believer that anyplace was better than dead. Nick shook himself and kept on with the Tour.

"You'll get an up-close look at all the areas starting tomorrow. Greenbeans spend the first few weeks giving all the jobs a try, seeing which one fits them best. Jobs are: Builders, Bricknicks, Baggers, Cooks, Track-hoes, Med-jacks, Slicers, and Sloppers. I 'spect you've heard a few of those titles mentioned. You're gonna spend a day working for each of the Keepers, doing whatever they tell you to do, figuring out which one you're best at. You get to choose which one you wanna try first. Take a good, long think about it. We're in no rush."

"What about Runners?" Ellie asked.

"It's not easy to become a Runner," Nick said. "And even if it were, I don't know why you'd want to be one. Basically, to be a Runner, you have to be nominated by the Keepers and voted on."

"Right," Ellie said. She wasn't sure why she'd asked. "Umm, I guess I'll try Track-hoes first…"

"Sure," Nick agreed. "You'll like Zart. The rest of today, you wander around, see the sights, and all that. Tomorrow you start working as one of the Track-hoes."

"Got it," Ellie affirmed. "So now it's like a self-guided Tour."

"Something like that. Just don't go in the Maze."

"Good advice, that."

Nick nodded and left her to her own devices. Ellie looked around. Where to first? Her eyes settled on the Homestead, the building she'd never actually been in. Maybe it was time to check it out. Feeling much less secure now that Nick was gone, she folded her arms protectively across herself and set out towards the Homestead.

It was a ramshackle old house. Little windows in the side let her see in. Flickering electric lights did a bad job of lighting it up. Ellie pushed the door open and entered. The air was stale. A rickety staircase led up to another level. A three-legged table stood without any decoration. The place seemed deserted, until footsteps above her broke the quiet. Muffled angry voices came from upstairs, until someone yelled, "Fine!"

Feet stomped loudly down the stairs, until a thin boy with tangled, shoulder-length black hair came into sight. He wore a dark brown t-shirt and very dark jeans. Getting off the staircase, he glared back up onto the second level as if he wanted to kill someone up there. Seeing Ellie, his furious gaze was redirected at her.

"What do you want?" he snarled. Ellie took an involuntary step back.

"Nothing, I was only looking around—"

"Shut your trap!" the kid exploded. "I've had enough of Newt's shuck whining to ever hear that klunk accent ever again!" He stood there, breathing heavily, nostrils flared.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Ellie apologized rapidly, beginning to get scared of this guy. He snorted and stalked out of the room to a hallway beyond, and disappeared. Ellie stood, some amount of adrenaline making her twitchy, trying to figure out why that kid was so angry. She breathed and swallowed, trying to calm herself down, when the kid reappeared where he had disappeared.

Fear gave way to angry determination. On her second day here, she would not let everyone know they could pick on the new girl. She _wouldn't_.

"Sorry about that," the kid, surprising her, even though he was still speaking somewhat grumpily. "I've got a temper. Wasn't trying to scare you." He looked more closely at her. "Though, you don't look very scared to me. I'm Edward. I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to shake my hand." He offered a thin smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Don't worry," Ellie said icily. "If you don't like the sound of my voice then I won't have a hard time making sure you don't hear it."

Edward's creepy smile widened a little bit. "Get excited for Med-Jack day, Greenie. You get a whole day to spend around _me_."

"Looking forward to it already," Ellie said sarcastically. Edward's smile suddenly became drastically more genuine. He put his hand on the railing of the stairway.

"Nice to get a Greenie with some guts for once," he said, and sprinted back up the stairs.

Ellie wanted to know what was up on the second level, but if Edward was up there, she sure as hell didn't want to see. She couldn't get out of the Homestead fast enough. Edward's weird multiple personalities freaked her out. She felt bad for anyone the Med-jacks had to tend to if he was always that unpredictable.

—

She had time to check out the Slammer and the animals in the pens near the Bloodhouse before lunch. She ate on her own, since Ben was nowhere to be found. She saw Edward eating calmly with another boy with fairly long dark brown hair. Maybe that kid was the one who could calm him down.

She found herself getting lonely. Ben seemed to be her only real friend at the moment, and if he were nowhere to be found, she was pretty much shucked.

 _Shucked?_ She caught herself using the Glader term. _Well,_ she resigned herself, _When in Rome…_

She tried to recall something about Rome, but couldn't. It was just a name in an expression to her.

She sat and watched as people came to eat and left quickly, back to their jobs. She supposed she should go continue her explorations. She figured she might as well go see the graveyard in the Deadheads. It sounded depressing, but she decided she might as well.

She was heading into the woods when she saw two guys dragging some kind of carcass into the Deadheads. One guy with platinum blonde hair waved at her with a friendly smile on his face, as if he totally didn't mind that he was dragging the remains of a pig behind him.

"Afternoon, Greenie," he called, and something in the way he said the name made it not seem quite so derogatory.

"Hi," said Ellie, intrigued. "What are you doing?"

He grinned, but didn't stop the pair's progress into the woods. "Looked up to the sky earlier today and thought to myself, 'Today would be a fine day for burying a dead pig in the Deadheads.' Nah. We're called Baggers, Greenie. We bury bodies and guard the Slammer, depending on what's gotta be done."

His right hand was holding onto the pig, so he offered his left for her to shake. "My name's Billy. This talkative shank's called Jackson." He nodded to his partner as he shook Ellie hand.

"I'm Ellie. Mind if I tag along?"

"You that bored already? Nick shoulda started you with your first Keeper _today,_ if that's the case."

"I figure if I have to spend a day at each of the jobs, I might as well learn about all of them."

"Fair enough. Tag along, if you want, but you gotta help with the digging."

Ellie shrugged. "Might as well."

Billy flashed his smile again. He seemed really friendly. "Alright! So what do you think of the Glade so far?"

"It's nice. Scary, what with the Maze and the Grievers, and all that, but everyone seems pretty nice. Except Edward."

"Ah, Edward," Billy sounded like this was nothing new. "He's not so bad, as long as you catch him around Henry. Henry's a nice guy, real serious with the Med-jack job. He and Edward take jabs at each other constantly, but they love each other really. They've been best friends since they got here. One right after the other."

"Yeah, well, lucky me, I caught Edward when he was by himself."

"Bad timing, Greenbean."

Ellie helped Jackson and Billy bury the pig near the wall, far into the Deadheads, and accompanied them back. Billy was nice enough to spend the rest of the day with her ("Friends are real important in this place, and it's hard enough for Greenies to find many good ones in their first month," he said.). It turned out Baggers didn't have to do much when there was no one in the Slammer and they'd already buried whatever poor animal had snuffed it that day.

The Runners got back a few minutes before the walls closed and sprinted into a small concrete building, closing a heavy door behind them. Billy explained that it was called the Map Room, and the Runners gathered there every day when they got back, so they could compare information.

Ben joined them for dinner—pulled pork and beans.

"How was your day?" he asked, sitting down at the four-sided picnic table with them.

"It was good," Billy interrupted teasingly, earning a look of mock-disapproval from Ellie.

"Not _you_ ," Ben said, but clearly he liked Billy, too.

"It wasn't bad," Ellie said. "A bit boring, but not bad."

"Better than my first day was. I swear Edward almost killed me when I checked the Homestead out."

"That makes two of us," Ellie agreed.

"Good," Ben grinned. "Nice to know I'm not the only guy that shank hates."

"Just call him _Edward_ because _I'd ward_ him off in a second if I could," Ellie muttered, surprising herself. Ben and Billy laughed out loud, mostly from surprise.

" _Wow,_ get wrecked," Billy laughed.

"I can honestly say I was not expecting you to say something like that," Ben agreed.

"Mind if I join you shanks?" a voice said, cutting them off. Their heads turned to see Minho scooting in on the bench without waiting for an answer.

"Doesn't look like we have a choice," Billy said, grinning.

"Nope. How's the Tour, Greenie? I take it you avoided being talked to death."

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Good, shank. You can make it through Nick's speech, you can make it through anything."

Ellie tried to smirk, but it turned into a smile. "Is that including or excluding the Maze?"

Minho snorted. "Be my guest, give it a try."

" _Don't_ give it a try!" Billy contradicted instantly. "Most definitely do not give it a try."

"Calm down, _Mom_ , I'm only kidding. Greenie's got some sense, she's not gonna go waltzing on into the Maze just 'cause I said something."

"Give me _some_ credit," Ellie said, jokingly offended. Billy rolled his eyes.

"So who're you with tomorrow?" Minho asked, stuffing a bite of pork and beans into his mouth.

"The Track-hoes," Ellie said, the term feeling extra-foreign on her tongue.

("Fitting," Minho muttered, too quietly for Ellie to hear.)

"You'll like Zart," Ben assured her.

"He's a nice dude," Billy agreed.

Turned out, Ellie didn't like the Keeper as much as everyone had told her. Zart was quiet, and even though he was friendly when he did speak, it seemed to Ellie as if he just didn't want to talk to anyone ever. It's not like she _disliked_ him, just that she felt awkward and uncomfortable around him.

The other Track-hoes were introduced to her: Han, Skippy, Justin, Rick, and Stephen. Han, Skippy, and Rick had been original Gladers. Stephen had been the Greenie before Ben, and Justin, sometime before that. Han and Skippy seemed to be best friends, because Skippy seemed to love gardening, while Han seemed like he was only putting up with the job because it meant he'd get to hang out with Skippy. Justin was basically unreadable, seeming not to care that she was a girl or if she joined them as a Track-hoe or not. Rick folded his arms and looked her up and down like he was giving her a threat-assessment. Stephen was nice, almost always sniggering to himself about something or another that he'd found funny, and he was the guy Ellie ended up spending most of the day with.

Zart had them all working on expanding the garden, weeding and planting new areas. Stephen and Ellie, being the newest, got to do most of the weeding. They spent the hours before lunch hunched over, yanking up roots and occasionally throwing them at each other while Zart wasn't looking.

After lunch, Zart put them to work hoeing the ground to soften it.

"Surprised no one's made a hoe joke yet?" Stephen asked teasingly, chopping up a chunk of earth.

"Now that you mention it," Ellie replied, "Yeah, I am."

"Alright, I'll be the first," Stephen said, straightening up and grinning. He pointed to Ellie footprint in the ground behind her and said, "Hey, look, that's your track, hoe."

"I'll beat you up."

"No, please don't."

"Don't worry," Ellie smiled, Stephen's joke not having offended her in the slightest. "Nick told me I can't hurt other Gladers. So you're safe for now…" She paused for a second, then added, "Man-hoe."

Stephen sputtered a laugh.

"Oh!" Ellie said, a huge pun-grin spreading across her face. "If we're humans, I guess you could say we're… _Hoe mo sapiens_."

" _Why,"_ Stephen asked, looking up to the sky dramatically and trying really hard not to smile. Ellie chuckled evilly.

When Nick came to collect her at the end of the day, Ellie had already decided that she didn't want to be a Track-hoe, even if Stephen was nice. She was pretty sure her calling didn't involve pulling weeds or making the inevitable _hoe_ jokes. It was boring and irritating. Always thinking the weeds were finished and then finding a million more was frustration incarnate.

"You have the next two weeks to figure out what you're good at, don't worry," Nick said. But, you _are_ gonna have to try this one again next week. All Greenies have to do it. If after that, you still don't like it, it's ruled out for you. No big deal."

"Alright," Ellie agreed. "What's tomorrow?"

Nick grinned. "I tend to recommend the Greenies start off with the jobs that are the most stressful. Like Slicers, Builders. Med-jacks, if you're squeamish."

"Slicers, then. It'll bring a whole new meaning to the word 'bloody,' won't it?"

Nick smiled like he was already so done with her jokes. "Alright, I'll let Winston know he'll be in charge of you."

"Cool," Ellie muttered, going to get dinner and join Ben at the picnic table as Nick left. Frypan had made some kind of chicken curry and rice.

"Turns out, Zart wasn't as lovable as you implied," Ellie told Ben as she sat.

"Really?" Ben said.

"Not very talkative, is he?"

"Guess not. But he's nice."

"I was getting more of the _stay away from me I'm busy_ vibe."

"Maybe he just doesn't like you."

"Thanks."

"Hey," Ben said, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. "You can't make friends with everyone here."

"I can bloody try," Ellie insisted, sitting back stubbornly.

"Alright, if you want," Ben relented.

Minho appeared, looking just the slightest bit rattled. "What's up, shanks? How's day three of Glade life, Greenbean?"

"Just fine," Ellie said. "How's day I-don't-know of the Maze, shank?"

Minho gave her a smirk. "Ask me how the Maze was when I come back yellin' how I found the way out, Greenie. 'Til then, the answer will always be that it sucked."

"Right then," Ellie said, raising an eyebrow. "Tomorrow I promise not to give a klunk how your day was."

Minho snickered. "You sound dumb using Glader words."

"Right," Ellie said, trying to be unfazed. "But _you_ sound dumb using _any_ words."

Minho choked on his curry as Ben burst out laughing. Ellie laughed at the comical, offended look on Minho's face. Ben was almost falling off the bench, he was laughing so hard.

Minho rolled his eyes in resignation, but Ellie could see that he was amused, too.

"Fine, I set myself up for that," he muttered, and Ellie gave a huge grin.

"Yes, you did," she agreed.

"Okay, shuckface, remind me to never ever let you get away with anything ever again."

"Why on earth would I remind you of that?"

"Someone finally manage to tell you off, Minho?" called someone from the Homestead entrance. Ellie grinned over at the kid Nick had called Alby, who was smirking at Minho, doing an exceptional job of hiding any smile he might've had.

Minho gave Ellie a look. "You're gonna ruin my reputation," he said, almost pouting.

Ellie shrugged, keeping her eyes on her curry, because if she looked at him she knew she would burst into laughter. "If that's the only accomplishment I make while I'm in this place, I will still consider myself a success."

Under the table, Ben offered her a fist-bump, and she accepted. Her day had just gotten remarkably better.

—

Nick brought her to Winston the next day, who was apparently in charge of three Slicers: Fred, Mark, and Chad.

Winston, for his part, was a little freaky in his eagerness to cut up animals, but Ellie suspected that he was so eager just so he could earn respect and prove to people he wasn't afraid of blood.

Fred was unsettling in that he walked very quietly and always appeared when you didn't expect him. When Ellie tried talking to him, though, he seemed shy but nice. Mark and Chad constantly harped at each other for whatever the other was doing wrong, and tended to complain about anything they could think of if there was nothing to criticize.

There was a black labrador in the Bloodhouse that started following Ellie around as soon as she let him sniff her hand. No one had given him a name, but he'd been there for as long as the original Gladers. They just called him 'Dog.'

Winston started her milking the cows, which she did with more than a few reservations. With Fred instructing her, and Dog wagging his tail by her side, she managed. Then, she and Fred gave slop to the pigs and fed grain to the chickens and turkeys. Fred didn't talk much, but Ellie got the feeling that he was cleverer than anyone knew. Dog seemed to take after him, because he was quiet through the whole day.

"Don't you _ever_ bark?" Ellie asked the dog quietly when Fred had left temporarily. "You're the quietest dog _ever_. Come on. Speak. Woof. Bark. No? Nothing?" She scratched behind his ears and he wagged his tail happily. Fred came back, and she suggested as a joke that they name the dog Bark.

Fred smiled. "I actually thought of that earlier," he said quietly.

"And didn't tell anyone?"

"No, of course not."

Ellie shrugged.

It turned out that Fred had come to show her to Winston, who was about to chop up a cow.

"Watch closely," he said, and began. Fred stood, unblinking, as Winston sawed through the cow's flesh. Ellie folded her arms and tried not to feel particularly squeamish, but her stomach did turn a bit when Winston's knife caught on a bone and he cursed to himself.

 _Wait a minute._

 _There's a pun I can make out of this._

"I guess you could say…mis-steaks were made," she offered. Fred didn't even hesitate before face-palming at the joke. Winston hardly even seemed to notice as he continued carving it. The guy certainly knew what he was doing. He put a whole new meaning to 'you can't spell _slaughter_ without _laughter_.'

When Nick came to relieve her at the end of the day, Ellie was more than ready to be away from the slaughterhouse. The dog—she'd started calling him Bark in her head—followed her. Apparently she paid him more attention than anyone else.

"So, what'd you think of Winston?" Nick asked.

"For a guy called Winston, he doesn't _wince_ a _ton_ , does he?"

"Oh, my God, Greenie."

"Sorry, I've been waiting _all bloody day_ for a chance to say that."

"I'm sure you have. You wanna try Builder out tomorrow?"

"Sure, why not. Ben's a Builder, right?"

"Right. Just actually do your work tomorrow and don't spend all day making jokes."

"I _pun_ derstand, sir."

Nick sighed.

She sat with Ben at dinner, and was swiftly joined by Minho. Fred appeared next to her quietly at some point and she noticed him with a start. Billy and Stephen smiled and waved to them, even though they didn't sit with her. Han and Skippy made eye contact with her and gave her a nod.

Ben was excited that she was going to be joining the Builders the next day, and honestly, Ellie was pretty happy to spend a day with a guy she already knew. Learning names was easy, but time-consuming. During dinner, while Minho was verbally beating Ben up with sarcasm and sass, her attempts to defend her friend were occasionally interrupted when she saw a face she knew and tried to attach a name to it.

It was only her fourth day, and all the Gladers' faces were familiar, like she'd seen them around before, or they were people she'd once known. She smiled to herself and hummed a quick tune without thinking.

The Builders were so far, the collectively friendliest group of people in the Glade. The Keeper's name was Frankie, a teenager who seemed to have spent all his life working out. He was muscular, with light brown hair swept to the side and tucked behind his ear. He was obviously in charge, but he was always willing to smile. Dave was a little shorter than Ben was, and had short-cropped black hair. He always seemed to want to impress everyone. Alex was a guy who just smirked and didn't seem to care about anything one way or another, but did his job well anyway.

The whole group was putting together another room onto the Homestead with planks of wood. They'd already constructed the frame in the days before, and it was fairly sturdy after having fallen over once. They put it up wall by wall, nailing the planks of wood to the top and bottom of the frame. They talked and laughed the whole day at the inside jokes of the Builders and the outside jokes from Ellie.

It took them about half the day to cover the sides with vertical planks. Ellie high-fived Ben and cheered, "Nailed it!"

Which was met with mostly friendly groans.

The Builders ate lunch together, grinning and proud of themselves. Frankie outlined how they would need to nail some boards on horizontally over the vertical ones, just for sturdiness' sake. He instructed Dave to climb to the top to put the roof on, and for Ellie to pass him boards whenever he asked for them.

The job was quieter after lunch, since they'd all gotten pretty tired. Ellie didn't mind the silence for the most part, but still ended up humming quietly as she went back and forth fetching wood for Dave.

"Hold on," Frankie said suddenly, stopping her. "What are you doing?"

"Passing things to Dave," Ellie said, confused. What had she done? "You said to."

"No, you were humming," Frankie pointed out. Ellie frowned. She had been. What of it? Frankie, seeing the confusion in her face, said, " _No one_ here hums. No one here can remember a tune to hum. You can?"

Ellie swallowed. Could she? Was her memory coming back? She could hum the tune, but the words were hard to remember, and she couldn't remember where she'd learned it, or who'd written the song.

Frankie had folded his arms, a gesture that for him was less defensive and more an indication that he was thinking. "Can you remember the words?"

Ellie shook her head, latching her mind onto the melody she'd been humming. It felt like the words were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite get them out. It was the closest memory she'd had while at the Glade. She forced herself to hum the tune again, focusing on finding the words.

The lyrics came out of nowhere, startling the klunk out of Frankie, who actually took a step backwards. The other Builders had stopped working and were listening in shock. It was a cheerful tune, and Ellie could hear the music echoing in her mind—piano and guitar. She couldn't recall the words before she sang them—no preparing, she just sang the words that felt right, and they came to her and ended up telling a story of lonely lovers.

Ellie stopped singing. Everyone was frowning in awed concentration, trying to figure out what had just happened. She realized she was frowning, too.

"Two years without any music," Frankie finally said, "And then the first girl who ever showed up can remember actual _songs_. I'm going to tell Nick. You all, keep working on this room."

Ellie looked to Ben uncertainly. The only thing he could do was shrug.

"You've got a pretty voice, though," said Alex, who had disregarded the song and already started hammering the planks again as if nothing had happened.

"Thanks, Alex, you're really comforting," Ellie said, only a little bit sarcastically. Even though it was obviously weird and unexpected that she could remember tunes when no one else could, it was flattering that Alex had given her a compliment.

But still.

Why did she have to be so different?

—

Obviously, at dinner, she and Ben told Minho. Dave had joined them. No one was really sure if Fred heard, because as usual, no one was quite sure when he'd arrived. Minho asked her to sing for them, and she sang a little more of the song she'd sung earlier, more and more of the words coming back to her. Stephen sat and complimented them on the new room of the Homestead. Ben blushed a little, and Ellie pretended not to notice.

Ellie had only mildly dreaded Med-jack day since meeting Edward. When Nick took her to meet the Keeper, Henry, at the Homestead, Edward was standing behind him, glaring moodily at the ground. Henry was taller than she was, and shook her hand warmly, giving a thin smile. He seemed genuinely nice, but something was thoroughly stressing him out.

Clint was a slim, reedy guy with curly hair. He nodded kindly at her, seeming a little twitchy. When Henry introduced Edward (since the guy didn't seem intent on talking to her again) all he did was blink irritably to show that he'd acknowledged her presence.

On her sixth day in the Glade hearing references of the famous Newt, Ellie finally got to meet him.

Henry opened the door to his room on the second floor of the Homestead. "Med-jacks don't have much to do when no one's hurt or sick. I'm just glad no one else's gotten sick this week. We have our hands full." His forehead was creased with worry.

Ellie walked in.

The Keeper of the Runners was lying on his back in a bed, staring at the ceiling expressionlessly. One of his legs was splinted with wood, and Ellie noted that whoever set it had known what they were doing. She glanced at Henry, who was staring at the splint with a muscle working in his jaw.

"Hey, Newt," Clint said, going to sit beside him in a chair by the bed.

"Hey," said Newt, not making any attempt to move. A pang of some kind of grief hit Ellie harder than she'd expected. The guy just seemed broken, and not just his leg. Ellie sensed a deep sadness from him. She moved around his table so she could see his face. He had blonde hair and dark eyes, skin that was too pale to be normal. He was a good-looking guy. Or he might have been more good-looking if he'd been smiling.

"You finally get to meet the newest Greenie," Clint pushed.

"The girl?" Newt asked, interest pushing in the way of the sadness in his voice.

"The one and only," Ellie affirmed. His head turned and raised a little so he could look at her. He forced a grin.

"Guess this isn't the most impressive way to meet the Newbie."

"Please," Ellie smirked. "Your reputation precedes you."

"Reputation," Newt snorted. "Didn't know I had one of those."

"Are you kidding? People wouldn't shut up about you when I got here." Ellie folded her arms, sensing the slightest bit of pride entering his reluctant smile. People had been right, they did have the same accent.

"Yeah, well, I'm hardly a Runner anymore, am I?" He grinned ruefully and let his head fall back onto the bed.

"From what I've heard of the Maze, that should be a good thing, mate," Ellie said.

"Sure, 'cept now I feel like a useless piece of klunk."

"You're not useless," Henry said without hesitating or looking at him—he was checking the splint, and gingerly touching Newt's bare shin.

"You might be a piece of klunk, though," said Edward, who had so far remained silent in the corner.

Newt snorted. "Thanks, Ed, you're real bloody encouraging, you are."

Henry seemed to ignore Edward's comment and looked up at Ellie. "Basically, Ellie, all we're doing today is looking after Newt. We sent a request down the Box for advice on how to fix his leg, but until it comes back up, we're doing the best we can."

"Whatever, Henry. I'd say you did a pretty great job of setting his leg. You're probably the only teen in the shuck world who could do something like that," Edward said aggressively, as if he didn't want to compliment the Med-jack Keeper too directly.

"Thanks, Ed," Henry said, covering a small smile. Somehow Ellie got the feeling that only Edward's compliments could mean anything to him. How cute.

"Right," Ellie said. "What do I do while I'm here?"

"Whatever we tell you to. He's gotten a bit of a fever recently, so the first thing you're gonna do is go get a wet cloth for him."

"And just where do I get one of those?"

"Downstairs. Kitchen. Sink. Fry will help you."

Ellie nodded and left the room.

—

The newest Greenie came back more quickly than Henry usually did when going on the same mission. She was pretty. Tan skin, brown hair. Newt rolled his eyes at himself. He was sure that every Glader had thought the same bloody thing when they'd seen her first.

Honestly, he was glad that Henry had sent her for a wet cloth, because it felt like his fever was getting worse. The room felt too hot, and he was probably sweating way more than he should. Ellie glanced at Henry, who motioned for her to put the cloth on his head. She did, and he _really_ wasn't prepared for the temperature difference. He was worse than he'd thought.

He winced a little as the cloth touched his forehead, and saw Ellie face change quickly to something like amusement, only to change right back again to serious.

"Saw that," he muttered to her.

"Yeah, I need to be more careful with my facial expressions, don't I?"

Newt tried to stop himself from smiling and nodded. A few seconds passed awkwardly with Ellie holding the cloth on his head. A wave of ridiculous embarrassment came over Newt, and he realized how comically awkward the situation was. He made eye contact with Ellie and they held it for just long enough. Newt barked a laugh, and Ellie joined in.

"Well, this is awkward," he said. Ellie was still laughing a little.

"I won't make it weird if you won't make it weird, 'right?" she grinned at him, letting the cloth flop over his face. She took it off almost as quickly as she'd done it, like she was scared of offending him.

But he was still smiling. It felt weird to smile. He hadn't smiled much, if at all, since he'd gotten back. The thought of _that_ wiped the smile from his face again.

"Still _feels_ weird," Newt said, "It's not like you're my mother."

Ellie barked a laugh of surprise. "Bloody hell, I 'ope not. There's been a lot of surprises in the last few days, but _that_ would be too much to handle."

Henry sighed, down by his leg. Ellie looked over, curious. Newt wished he wouldn't sigh like that. It was very discouraging. Apparently, Ellie felt the same.

"Well, _that's_ an encouraging noise," she said sarcastically. Henry stood up and backed away, folding his arms.

He shrugged. "I don't know what I need to do. I set it, and I keep feeling like I need to check it every day. But it doesn't _look_ like there's any change." Henry made eye contact with Newt, and he could see the worry lines that already marked Henry's face.

"If you want a break, I could always go stab someone in the face and you could care for them, instead," Edward offered. Henry just gave him the most paralyzing look of disapproval Newt was sure he had ever seen.

"Guess that's a no, then," Edward muttered grumpily, receding back into his corner again.

"You're charming," Clint told him.

"Thanks," Edward shot back with a voice dripping with malicious sarcasm. "I wake up everyday hoping to impress you."

"Edward," Henry said, with some kind of warning in his voice.

Edward rolled his shoulders and sighed, and left the room. Ellie shrugged and gave Newt a _well okay then_ look.

—

Ellie spent the day sitting by Newt, doing like Henry said and…doing whatever Newt said. He was a really cool guy, and she found herself liking him more and more until she considered him one of her best friends in the Glade.

Henry, Edward, and Clint ate lunch outside like they usually did, since Clint insisted it was psychologically good for Henry to take a break. Ellie was tasked with the job of bringing Newt lunch, which she did. When she went back out, she got her own lunch (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, yay!) and brought it right back to the room to keep Newt company. He'd dragged himself towards the head of the bed and propped himself up on some pillows.

"You don't want to eat outside?" he asked.

"Nah, I can eat outside anytime. Plus, I figure eating alone is kinda…"

"Lonely. Yeah." There were a few seconds of silence.

"So you were _Keeper_ of the Runners, right?"

Something crossed Newt's face—that deeper sadness that she'd seen when she'd first seen him. "Yes," he said. "But I don't imagine I will be for much longer."

"What?"

"My leg, Greenie. Nick's no idiot. I can't be a Runner anymore, not with my leg like this."

"It'll heal," Ellie tried, although she really wasn't sure if that was true. Henry was obviously good at this, but he was still a teenager. Not a doctor. Newt knew that, too.

"No. Even assuming Henry set it right, I'm old enough now that it'll take three, four months to heal properly." Newt sighed. "I'm going to nominate Minho as my replacement for Keeper of the Runners at the next bloody Gathering that isn't a bunch of shanks losing their minds 'cause a girl's showed up at the Glade."

Ellie remembered that Gathering. No one had ever told her what it had been about.

"What was said during that?" she asked. "The last Gathering?"

"No one's told you?" Newt raised an eyebrow.

Ellie gave him a look, like, _really, I think the answer to that is bloody obvious, mate_.

"No one's told you. It was basically just all the Keepers getting together wondering why a girl's come. Some of us thought you were a sign of freedom, some thought you were just a girl, and that they were sending us girls now, and the rest thought you were a bloody spy from the Creators."

"What did _you_ think?"

"I think there's no way you're a spy, so it's one of the other two. I think we've just got to wait until the next Greenie comes and then we'll see."

Ellie sat back in the chair. "Good, that. Did you know I can actually remember some songs?"

Newt turned his head. "You can sing? _Actual_ songs?"

Ellie shrugged. "I've been humming to myself without thinking since I got here. Frankie noticed yesterday."

"Took everyone that long to notice you doing something' that _none_ of us have been able to do since we got here? And you can remember the _words_?" Newt had been leaning forward in excitement, but now he flopped back onto the pillows in disbelief. "Seems more and more likely you're supposed to be a sign of freedom."

"Be nice, wouldn't it," Ellie agreed.

"You've got no idea. Are you thinking of staying as a Med-jack?"

"Well," Ellie sighed thoughtfully. She really liked talking to Newt, but… "Don't get me wrong, it's fun to talk to you and such. It just feels like I got nothing to contribute here. I don't know anything about bloody doctoring. According to Nick, I'm s'posed to do my part, right? Don't feel like I'm doing much here."

"Fair enough," Newt said. "I wouldn't want to be stuck around whiny shanks all day, either."

"You're not whining."

"I'm whining on the inside."

"Sure."

—

It felt wrong to leave and let Newt eat dinner alone, but he assured Ellie that he'd be fine, that everyone needed some alone time now and then, and she smirked at him and told him he must have had enough for a lifetime while he was stuck in his bed.

As soon as she left his room to eat dinner, the smile slipped off Newt's face, and he fell back into his painful thoughts yet again. Yet, somehow, he couldn't recall having to fake any of his smiles that day.

Ellie, for her part, tried all night to decipher his deep sadness, even though a smile was on his face most of the time. There had to be something. She was lying on her back in her sleeping bag when an urgent memory pushed at the walled barrier that kept her from her past and she was struck with deep concern for Newt. Even though she knew he was in good hands.

A beetle blade skittered silently past her hand, unseen.

Her seventh day was spent in the kitchen with the fuzzy Frypan. His fellow cooks, Sid and Joe, were nice, and both seemed like they were older than just teenagers. They did their jobs quietly, occasionally muttering something poetic under their breath when they were sure no one was listening. Frypan told them what they were making, and the three worked together flawlessly.

Nick had woken Ellie up early so she could help them with breakfast. Sid gave her a bunch of eggs and told her to scramble them, which she did without messing up. All day, she wished she could make a _that's the way the cookie crumbles_ pun, but it seemed that deserts were a rarity in the Glade. Something that, if she became a Cook, she would fix.

They made sure there was enough barbecue chicken to go around for the barbecue sandwiches at lunch. Sid made a salad dressing, Joe made beans, Frypan and Ellie cut up the chickens, which was fairly mindless work. They ate together in the kitchen.

Ellie hummed all day, after Frypan told her they didn't mind, it was actually kind of nice. She went from song to song, as one tune reminded her of another. She sang the words quietly as soon as they came to her.

The Box came up again that day, Ellie uncertain of the time when it had gone down. Frypan sent her out to get whatever food supplies was in it. Several loaves of bread, wrapped and filling a wooden box with the word _WICKED_ on it. Cans of beans, packs of frozen meats, a bunch more boxes to drag back to Frypan.

Lamb stew for dinner, and Ben told her in passing that it was really good, but Ellie didn't taste it until she brought a bowl to Newt, and they ate the meal together.

"You know you don't have to go out of your way to eat with me."

"Yes I do."

"No, you don't."

"If I don't, I would beat myself up all night with guilt that I let someone eat alone. Friends are really important in this place." She found herself quoting Billy. "I hate seeing lonely people."

"Nothing I can say will make you leave me alone, can it?"

"Well, you could say that you hate me and everything I love, but I wouldn't believe you."

Newt grinned and looked down at his lamb stew. Ellie felt an accomplished surge of happiness every time she made him smile, every time she chased away that feel of deep grief for just a second.

They talked, and Ellie made him laugh twice more. It made her weirdly happy to see him happy.

"What are you gonna be when you're not a Runner?"

"I guess I'll have to go through the same process Greenies do. I've never been anything but a bloody Runner, so I don't really know."

"Be a Med-jack."

"What? Why?"

"So you can literally describe people as _bloody_."

" _Wow._ "

—

Ellie spent the next day as one of the Bricknicks, who just went around patching up holes in the Homestead. There was apparently a few lights in the Homestead that had to be fixed or replaced every couple of days, for some reason. Abe, the Keeper, pointed them out to her, since there wasn't much else to do. They tended just to help the Builders out.

Abe had decided recently, though, that there weren't enough picnic tables in the Glade, so he had his two charges (and Ellie) working on constructing new ones from the boards WICKED had sent up in the Box the day before.

"The Bricknicks' picnics," Ellie called it, met with some smiles and tired acknowledgements of her rhyme.

The biggest difference between Bricknicks and Builders, Ellie decided eventually, was that Bricknicks tended to focus more on precision. Builders built rooms on the Homestead, and Bricknicks made sure they were sound. The picnic tables took a while, but ended up very sturdy, and by the end of the day, two new tables had been constructed and run over with sandpaper.

The sandpaper had been prompted when Nick had come to congratulate them, and promptly gotten a splinter from the first table.

"You've been _pricked,_ _Nick_ ," Ellie said, elbowing Martin with a smile on that the Gladers had come to associate with puns. Martin smiled like he was tired already of putting up with her, but then gave in and chuckled at her jokes.

Nick just shook his head at her.

"You've finished your first week, Greenbean. Tomorrow you start the jobs again with Baggers." Nick was telling her later.

"I haven't done Baggers yet," Ellie said, confused.

"Not officially. You helped Billy out the day I gave you the Tour."

"That counts?"

"That counts. Baggers don't do much, unless we've got someone in the Slammer, or if someone's died."

Ellie nodded, wondering how someone would die if they followed the rules and stayed in the Glade. Nick was about to leave when she remembered Newt and called, "Wait, did Newt tell you about—"

"About quitting?" Nick said, interrupting her. He turned, a look of frustrated concentration in his eyes. "Yes. I'd been having Alby run into the Maze to map it this past week. He doesn't like it. The Council's voting on the new Keeper and the new Runner tonight, at dinner. Second Gathering in a week." Nick's face contorted in stern disapproval. "We're having a bad stretch."

"They're voting on the new Runner," Ellie said, sitting with Ben, Fred, Billy and Minho at the usual picnic table. Stephen sat down next to Ben as she said it, and she noticed him squirm slightly, and try too hard not to touch Stephen's arm.

"Guess that means Newt's quitting," Minho said, with a certain amount of disappointment. "We get a new Keeper, too, I assume."

"Correct," Ellie said, wondering if he suspected it would be him.

He had not.

Nick and Alby walked towards them from the Homestead at the end of dinner.

"Hey, we get to find out who's the lucky shank," Minho muttered, nodding to them.

"Congratulations, Minho," Alby said, clapping him on the shoulder as they reached him. Minho's face was curious to confused in two seconds.

Nick folded his arms. "You're the lucky shank, shuckface _._ Enjoy being Keeper of the Runners, Minho."

Minho was up in a second, face to face with Nick, who was ever so slightly taller. "No. I'm not cut out for being Keeper. Newt's always been Keeper, and I've never wanted that from him."

"Newt seems to think you're up for it."

"He's _wrong_. Go back in there and vote another shank to be the shuck Keeper."

"Minho," Ellie called, trying to calm him down. "It's not like you have to do anything differently as a Keeper." She glanced at Nick to make sure that was true. Minho hadn't taken his eyes off the leader of the Gladers. Nick's eyebrows twitched and he nodded towards her as if to say, _She's got a point, Minho._ He didn't break eye contact with Minho, like doing that would be a sign of weakness.

 _Can't have that, can we, Nicholas_? Ellie thought.

"Calm down, dude, this is _good_ ," Billy said when Minho didn't sit. "You've been a Runner just as long as Newt had."

"You're a _Keeper_ now, you can go to all the Gatherings and stuff," Ben added.

("He's a keeper," Stephen whispered as a joke to Ben, quietly enough so that Minho couldn't hear it.)

Minho was faltering. He looked down, away from Nick's steady eyes. "Fine," he said grouchily, sitting down. "Who's the new Runner I have to train, then?"

"No one," Nick said, already walking away to tell the new Runner the (bad?) news. "Rick already knows how to run the Maze."

 _Rick. The Track-hoe who looked at me like he expected me to start attacking people._ Ellie looked around the Glade, the Gladers sitting in groups, and located Rick. He was sitting with Han, Skippy, and a few people she hadn't yet met. As she and her group of friends watched, Nick and Alby told Rick what he would be doing for the rest of his Glade career. He frowned, looked around at his friends, shrugged, and nodded like he knew he couldn't get out of it.

"He didn't care when we were making the jobs," Minho said. "He narrowed his job options down to Runner or Track-hoe and said he didn't care which they gave him. Newt decided we had to run with conviction, and if there's one word to describe my running style, it's conviction."

"More like _convict_ ," Ellie said, then, as mock-encouragement, "Run like you stole something, Minho."

He snorted. "Thanks."


	3. No One Else to Trust

Ellie's second week started with the carcass of a cow.

She'd spent most of the first day with Billy, Jackson, Will, and Gordon. Until Winston finished cutting up a cow he'd slaughtered. They dumped it in the animal graveyard and buried it. And their job was over.

They showed her the graveyard, which she hadn't explored yet.

She walked among the graves of six dead kids, most original Gladers, one Greenie who couldn't take it.

One white cross had been carved with, _Memorial for James._

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"We don't have his body," Will, the Keeper, said. "He was Banished."

"Right," Ellie said, taking a step back. What had this guy done to deserve that? Billy patted a cross a little ways away, giving her a meaningful look.

 _Never,_ ever _, hurt another Glader,_ Nick had said.

She looked around. The Baggers were wandering around, looking at the six graves, pushing weeds away from the crosses with their feet. Ellie found herself humming something slow and sad.

—

The week went on. She spent the next day joking with Stephen of the Track-hoes. The day after, Winston let her help cut up some chickens. Fred was unfazed, but Bark stayed out of sight. After each day, she kept Newt company for at least a little while, even if she didn't eat dinner with him. Dark circles under his eyes were becoming more and more pronounced.

"You don't _have_ to come keep me company, Newbie."

"I bloody know that." She kept doing it anyway.

Minho was adjusting well to being Keeper—after his original outburst, he realized there really wasn't anything to stress about. After a few days, he walked through the Glade with his head held high. Ben kept trying not to act awkward around Stephen, which Ellie noticed with amusement. Fred stayed silent until he had something really important to say.

Being with the Builders was fun the second time she did it, and they asked her to sing while they kept hammering. They hammered along to the beat of her songs, so she sang exciting songs that worked with the added percussion.

When Dave smashed his finger under the hammer, Ellie said, "Go lie down, Dave, you're hammered," and everyone just groaned and face-palmed as Dave left to get a band-aid from the Med-jacks.

The day after, she was with the Med-jacks, tasked with putting ice packs on the swelling in Newt's leg. She sat watching him try to hide his winces out of the corner of her eye. Edward brought a wet cloth and threw it unceremoniously onto Newt's shoulder before leaving. Henry came in sometimes and sat, tense, beating himself up over his lack of knowledge of broken legs. When he came, Edward came, too.

"There's nothing you can do."

"There has to be."

"There isn't. Give it up, slinthead, you haven't got x-ray vision. Deal with it, you can't fix everything."

"Don't talk like that."

"I'll talk how I like, thanks."

Ellie and Newt exchanged looks of amusement. Edward had long since stopped scaring Ellie, now that every time she saw him he was around Henry.

"Try putting a request down the bloody Box for a cast or something," Newt suggested.

"Right," Edward said slowly, his voice dripping malicious sarcasm. "Because the shucks who put us here care enough about _you_ to send up a specialized cast for your stupid leg."

"Worth a try?"

"No. The Creators are stupid, vicious, bloodthirsty shanks who want to see all of us suffer and die. They're not gonna send you a shuckin' _cast_ , klunkhead."

—

In the WICKED base three floors below, Teresa crossed her arms, offended.

—

"Ed," Henry said tiredly, still sitting, now rubbing his eyes. Something like exasperation in his voice made the aggressive teen simmer down. He growled as he stepped out of the room to calm himself down.

Ellie leaned closer to Newt. "Stupid, vicious, bloodthirsty shank," she muttered to him. "Who does that remind you of?"

"How do you put up with him?" Newt asked Henry, as the guy stood up and paced, shaking his head.

Henry pushed hair out of his eyes and sighed. "He's got a soft side. He just doesn't show it. Like, _ever._ I think he's probably right, though, the Creators won't send up a cast. I don't think they'll ever make it that easy."

"I know that."

There were a few seconds of silence. Someone shouted outside in the Glade. Someone else shouted something back.

Henry sighed again. "I guess we just have to keep you in the splint until you think you can walk. I guess in a month. With crutches."

Newt sniffed. "Got any crutches just lyin' around, Henry?"

"Bricknicks can make some. Abe's good with his hands."

The door creaked loudly, and Ellie's mind seemed to lag. She looked to the door and Fred was standing there, breathing heavily, eyes wide. Newt started as he saw him.

"Owen's been stung," Fred said, his voice raised in urgency.

Henry spun around in surprise, not having heard him enter. He stared at Fred in disbelief. Edward's face appeared on the outside of the door, making alarmed eye-contact with Henry. There were two split seconds of stunned silence, and then Edward started running. Henry darted past Fred and down the hall after him. Fred caught Ellie's eye for an instant, and then raced out.

Someone was screaming outside.

Ellie had stood. She looked at Newt, whose eyes showed he knew exactly what was going on and it worried him. She didn't know what to do.

"Go!" he said urgently after her hesitation. "Help them!"

Ellie turned and whipped out the door instantly. Down the hall, down the stairs, out the Homestead. Henry and Edward were running away from the building, towards one of the doors. Around her, people were noticing the commotion and abandoning their jobs to see what was happening. Before she knew it, she was gaining on Henry and Edward. She didn't know what _stung_ meant, or what she was supposed to do when she got there, but she had to _try_ to help.

She saw a trio of kids limping towards them. The one in the middle seemed passed out. His feet were dragging, his head was lolling. A bloodstain was in the lower right of his shirt. Around the shoulders of his supporters, his hands twitched.

"How the shuck did he make it back on his own?" Edward yelled, reaching the trio first and slipping the middle kid's arm around his own shoulder to relieve the guy on the kid's right.

"We don't know!" It was Mark, one of the Slicers.

"He made it almost to the door and screamed and collapsed," said the other guy, as Henry took the unconscious Runner's other arm. Han, one of the Track-hoes.

Nick appeared. "How did he get back _into_ the walls?" he demanded of Han.

"Shut your trap, Nick," Edward exploded. "The rules don't matter if it saves someone's life, shuckface!"

"The rules always matter," Nick shot back.

"Apparently not to Alby with Newt!"

" _Not. Now,_ " Henry bellowed. "Nick, go get the serum for Owen. _Do it!"_

"What can I do?" Ellie asked as Nick relented and ran off.

"Go find Clint," Henry commanded. "We'll need you both when he goes through the Changing."

Ellie decided not to focus on that last confusing part, and ran off to find Clint. He was in the Bloodhouse, checking an injury Bark had sustained in his paw. Ellie ran in and yelled, " _Clint_!" She grabbed his arm and tugged him to his feet. Bark whined and tried to hobble after them.

"Hey, wait!" Clint exclaimed.

"Owen got stung." Ellie faltered, looking back at poor Bark. "Tell me what to do for him, and go help Henry and Edward."

"He stepped on a nail, I've already disinfected it, you just need to bandage it—bandages over there," Clint said, words rushing out of his mouth. Then he ran off to the Homestead. Ellie hurried to the bandages where Clint had pointed and knelt by Bark to wrap them around his paw. The dog obligingly lifted his foot so she could have an easy time. She finished hurriedly and checked to make sure it was okay, then stood and practically flew back to the Homestead.

She ran in, and up the stairs, where Henry and Edward were dragging Owen into a room separate from Newt. Nick and Clint materialized behind her, Nick holding some kind of syringe like it was poison.

"What's the Changing?" Ellie asked Clint as they followed Henry and Edward into the room.

"Hard to say, exactly," Clint said. "You'll see."

Edward tossed Owen onto a mattress on the ground and dropped to his knees beside him, feeling for a vein in his arm. He found it and kept a finger there, marking it.

Henry snatched the syringe from Nick and knelt by Edward, sticking the syringe into Owen's vein and pushing all the blue liquid out. As he did this, Owen started twitching, groaning.

Henry took the syringe out and yelled, "Hold him," right as the kid started to scream and thrash. Nick, Clint, and Edward instantly clamped down on his limbs. Nick took his legs by himself. Edward braced his left arm, and Clint took the right. Henry moved to his head and placed his hands carefully around Owen's temples to hold his head down. Owen didn't stop shrieking.

 _So this is the Changing._

Ellie finally got herself to move and helped Nick with the kid's legs. He glanced at her.

"A bad stretch, like I said," he muttered, almost too quietly to hear.

—

Ellie sat, staring off into space, sitting by Newt's bed. It was dinner time, but she didn't feel like talking like she usually did. Newt was quietly eating his own chicken soup, eyeing her occasionally to see if she was okay.

She was not okay, he decided. She'd spent all day with Owen after she'd ran out of his room. Newt could still hear the occasional scream or moan from a few rooms over. He hadn't seen Henry, either, and Minho hadn't come to see him since the day he'd become Keeper. Ellie wasn't talking about Owen's condition, so Newt had been kept in the dark all day.

For a few minutes, Ellie had been on automatic mode, the spoon traveling from her bowl to her mouth without thought. Now she was sitting, letting her soup grow cool in her lap. This, from her, was more worrying than Henry's sighs.

Newt found himself wanting her to make conversation. So far, all conversations with her had made him smile—genuinely—at least once. Smiling felt good. This silence from her, this did not feel good. He shifted his leg and winced. Ellie's head turned to look at him, and she blinked herself back to reality.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Are _you?_ " he countered.

"Yeah, I'm bloody brilliant," she said touchily.

"No need for sarcasm."

"Sorry." She looked down at her bowl and offered no apologies nor excuses. Newt waited a few seconds.

"He's gonna be okay."

"How do you know?"

"He got back here in time for the serum—"

"Didn't seem to do him much good."

"Listen, will ya? If a Griever stings a Runner, and somehow they manage to make it back before the doors close, the serum saves their life. If not, they go completely mental. George did. The Changing unhinges them a bit, but they live and end up keeping their head."

"What happened to George?"

"Made it back before the doors closed, but none of us knew to give him the serum, so he passed out for a few days and when he woke up, he was rabid. Foaming at the mouth. As in, _worse than Edward._ Alby put him down." Newt could remember the look in George's eyes when he'd woken up. He'd been a Runner.

"What a comforting tale," Ellie said. She looked down at her room-temperature soup and gave a small giggle. "Worse than Edward. Good, that."

Good. She was smiling again.

—

Two more days for two more jobs, and then Ellie was okay again. Owen was still unconscious, being cared for by Henry or Edward or Nick all day. Ellie kept keeping Newt company—by the end of her second week she was calling him 'Salamander' just to tease him.

He didn't mind so much as he pretended to.

The day after her second time as a Bricknick, Nick came to her in the morning, when she was at breakfast with her friends, followed by seven familiar faces, Keepers that she'd worked for every day for the past two weeks. Ben, Fred, and Stephen sat next to her.

"Today's the day, Greenbean." He said, folding his arms (something that he seemed to do a lot). "Today's the day you decide who you want to work for. Sloppers are out of the question—those jobs are for Greenies who're no good at any of the other jobs. I've been assured by every Keeper here that you could be _any_ job. So it's your choice."

Ellie hesitated. Through her Greenbean weeks, she hadn't really thought about which job she wanted to spend the rest of her Glader career as. She'd ruled out Med-jack. Ruled out Cook, just so she wouldn't be the girl in the kitchens. Being a Bagger just seemed boring. And _not_ Track-hoes.

So: Slicers, Builders, or Bricknicks. Honestly, she was fine with any one of them.

She glanced at Fred, Ben, and Stephen. Fred met her eyes and smiled in a mild-mannered sort of _I-don't-mind_ kind of way. Stephen was casually eating his eggs like he didn't care, and Ben was watching her to see her response.

Builders. They were the friendliest. She enjoyed the building-related puns. Ben was the best friend she had here. She listed reasons mentally, convincing herself to say it out loud.

"Builders."

Frankie broke into a huge grin and clapped her on the back. The other Keepers nodded and smiled and drifted away to their various jobs. Ben broke into a huge grin and offered a fist-bump.

Stephen jokingly pouted. "Aww, you didn't like hanging out with me?" He jostled her with his shoulder to show he wasn't serious.

"Glad to know you enjoyed the Builder experience, Greenie," Frankie said, ignoring him and sitting with them as she finished breakfast. She smiled and glanced at Fred.

When he realized she was looking at him, he said quietly, "I thought you would pick Builder."

Ellie raised an eyebrow.

Fred's slim shoulders twitched into a shrug. "Your days were always the best when you'd been with the Builders." He looked down, smiling meekly. "Glad to know I was right." He stood and left to go to the Bloodhouse.

The Builders intended just to add one room at a time to the Homestead, so Ellie just did what Frankie said. For a week. Eating with them at lunch, growing closer to Ben, singing for them as they worked. Making puns, feeding off of the groans and face-palms that they caused.

"Well, we're screwed," when Frankie told her that they actually did have an electrical screwdriver.

"Ben there, done that," when Ben told Frankie he'd already completed something Frankie had just told him to do.

"Any wood you can hand me?" Dave asked from the roof, and Ellie just burst out laughing without having to say anything.

Two weeks, Ellie kept working for the Builders, and worked at making friends with everyone in the Glade. Except Edward. She knew everyone by name, and more Gladers started hearing her singing, started smiling at her at dinner and lunch.

More Gladers were smiling, in general.

She visited Newt for a while on most days, usually during or after dinner.

"Builder, huh?"

"Yep."

"You didn't strike me as the Builder type." (Even though Newt had enjoyed being able to hear her singing faintly through the walls of the Homestead)

"What's that supposed to mean, Salamander?"

"Relying mostly on muscle, not as much on brain power?"

"Ever heard of architects? Bloody brilliant, they are."

"Are you an architect, Newbie?"

"…I never said I was clever…"

—

During the middle of her fourth week, after dinner, she and Ben were lying fairly near each other, as their sleeping bags had been since she'd gotten there.

"Hey, Ellie?" Right as she was about to fall asleep. "Ellie."

"Yes, shank?" Only a little bit irritated at him.

"People talk about their crushes during sleepovers, right? That's a thing kids do?"

"To the best of my memories, yes."

There was a pause from Ben.

"Tell me it's not on me," Ellie said flatly, even though she was already grinning, suspecting she knew exactly who it was.

Ben laughed as if it were the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. "No, shuckface." Another pause.

"Then who? You brought it up, I assumed you were going to follow through," Ellie pretended she didn't know, to save Ben the embarrassment.

Ben mumbled something that sounded like "Stuff it."

"Come again?"

" _Stephen_." Still very quietly. Ellie got up on an elbow, grinning widely, to look at Ben. He glanced at her, blushing bright red and turning onto his side so he wouldn't have to look at her.

"I will support that relationship every day and every night," Ellie said, still smiling, refraining herself from teasing him to try and encourage her friend.

"Think it might work out?" Ben asked softly, still not turning to her.

Ellie shrugged. _Depends on whether or not he's gay._ "It might. There's about…" she pretended to think, " _one._ One way to see."

"What's that?"

"Tell him."

"Hah."

Ellie shrugged and gave up and throughout the rest of the week tried to leave Ben alone with Stephen whenever she could. She spoke to Minho about it, and Minho gleefully joined in on her plot (although he teased Ben about it a little more than Ellie did, telling Ben that he'd figured it out on his own; that it wasn't hard to see).

One day, Ellie asked Nick if the Gladers ever threw parties.

"No. There's no time nor reason for parties."

Ellie doubted that, and she pressured him a little but eventually gave up.

At the end of the fourth week, when she went to keep Newt company, Henry was carefully wrapping his lower leg and his foot in all the gauze he possessed. Abe, Keeper of the Bricknicks, had completed carving and constructing a pair of crutches for Newt. Henry had decided it was risky to send Newt off with only the splint he'd made, so he was making a makeshift cast for the former Keeper of Runners. Henry's face was twisted in concern and concentration as he moved Newt's leg slightly to pass the gauze under it.

Unseen, a beetle blade was watching him to make sure he didn't screw up any of Newt's bones.

He didn't.

Abe had done an exceptional job on the crutches, and for the first time in thirty days, Newt managed to go outside, followed closely by Henry and Ellie. His leg was bound and secure in layers on layers of gauze. Henry had used every last bit of it, banking on the hope that no one else would need it until the Box came back up with more.

On the thirty-first day of Ellie's Glader life, the alarm went off—a piercing siren that startled Ellie into dropping the hammer she was holding—luckily it didn't land on her feet.

She looked in confusion at Ben, who yelled, "The Greenie alarm!"

"That's _alarming_!" she yelled back, and Ben rolled his eyes. Around her, the Builders were putting down what they were doing and heading around the Homestead towards the Box. Ellie caught Frankie giving her a look, but he looked away quickly. At the front of the Homestead, Newt was exiting on his crutches. She caught up to him.

Nick and Alby, across the Glade, were heading towards the Box, too. Nick seemed to be staring straight at her, but she couldn't really tell. Alby, on the other hand, definitely was.

"Why're people looking at me weirdly?" Ellie asked Newt.

"This is an important moment," Newt said, crutching along next to her. "This is when we figure out if the Creators are sendin' us more girls, or if you were the only one."

The Keepers Ellie could see were conglomerating on each other, looks being passed between them as they all reached the Box. Except for Minho, who was still out in the Maze.

"What happens if I'm the only girl?"

"Then you're the only option for procreation," Newt said, and Ellie couldn't tell if he was joking, so she didn't say anything.

The alarm stopped ringing after a few minutes of the Gladers milling around the Box.

"We gonna get another girl?" someone called out, over the smalltalk of the Gladers.

"I wouldn't mind a girlfriend, myself," someone else spoke up.

"Not it," Ellie yelled back at whoever it was who'd said that. A few laughs swept through the Gladers.

It took around twenty minutes for a clanking noise to sound from beneath the Box doors. A muffled voice yelled, "Hello?" from the metal box.

"Hi," called Stephen as a joke, waving at the top of it.

Nick and Alby stepped up, each grabbing a handle, and yanked the doors apart, letting light down into the Box. The people closest to the Box began to giggle or laugh.

"Welcome to the Glade, ya ugly shank."

"Someone throw him the rope!" Newt looked at Ellie. _Him._

"Get up here, shuckface, there's no use hidin'."

"We don't bite…much."

"Edward does!" someone else called, and people laughed. Ellie caught sight of Edward, grinning darkly, and he snorted as if to say, _That's shucking right._

A kid was hauled up over the edge of the Box, and he turned about, looking terrified. Ellie imagined that's what she must've looked like when she got there. The kid's nose was big, his face spotted with lumps of acne on his cheekbones. His eyes were huge. Gladers were crowding around him.

"Looks like he'll be a Slicer, to me."

"What's your name, shank?"

The kid tried to back away from everyone around him but tripped on a clump of weeds that had grown through a crack on the stone patio around the Box. People laughed.

 _Rude._ Ellie disapproved.

"Oy," she yelled, pushing through the Gladers until she was standing over the newest Greenie. "Give 'im some space, shanks. Honestly, you act like you all were never Greenies!"

"Some of us weren't!" Frypan called. He was an original Glader.

"'Sides," someone else called. "Messing with Greenbeans is the only fun we get around here!"

"Well that's not my bloody fault, is it? I did ask Nick to throw parties, so don't say I never tried." Ellie looked around, challenging anyone who wanted to bully the new guy. "You never acted this way with me, anyway!"

"Yeah, well, you were—"

"You're a _girl_."

"I don't see any rules posted against being a girl," Ellie made a show of searching for a _No-Girls Allowed_ sign.

Then she looked down at the newest Greenie, whose breath had quickened, his eyes darting around at the sea of unfamiliar faces.

"Hey, kid," she said to him.

"Who are you?" he demanded, trying to scoot back away from her. "Where am I?"

"And why can't you remember anything," Ellie filled in for him. "Hi, I'm Ellie, and you're in a place called the Glade. What's your name?"

"Why can't I remember anything?" He repeated her and ignored her question.

"Dunno," she said, crouching so that she wasn't towering over him. "None of us could, either. What's your name?"

"How do I know you didn't do this to me? How do I know I can trust you?" he demanded.

"Good question," a Glader hollered from the crowd, which had grown quiet.

Ellie thought for a second. "Well," she said finally. "Quite simply, there's no one else _to_ trust." She let that sink in. "Now what's your name, kid? I know you remember it."

The newbie stared at her for a second, then his eyes darted around and then back to her face.

"Gally," he said finally. "My name's Gally."

"Welcome to the Glade, Gally," Ellie said, straightening up and offering him her hand. He took it, and she pulled him to his feet.

Cheers and applause erupted from the Gladers, and people were clapping him on the back and welcoming him with their confusing vocabulary.

"Stuff it!" Nick yelled after a few seconds of this, and the Gladers simmered down, stepping back to let Nick get to Gally. "Well done," he said aside to Ellie. "Smoothest anyone's calmed down in a while."

Somehow Newt got to her side.

"How'd ya do that?"

"Do what?"

"Been here since the beginning, and I've never seen a Newbie slim it that buggin' fast."

"It's called _empathy_ , Salamander, you might try it sometime." Newt looked away. "Anyway, I guess they're sendin' up guys again. Do I get to know now more specifically what was said during that first Gathering?"

Newt inhaled deeply. "Nick'll probably tell you, _after_ giving the new shank the Tour, o' course. He might want you to stick around with 'im. Calm him down if he bugs out."

Ellie looked at Gally. Nick was talking to him, but the kid was still staring around twitchily, obviously not listening.

"Bloody hell," she said. "Can't wait to see his face when the walls bloody close."

"See? Having Greenies is fun."

Ellie smirked. "What a pathetic idea of fun."

Newt shrugged. "We work with what we have."

Ellie caught Nick's eye as he was about to lead Gally off for the Tour. The kid was a little more focused. "Need me to stick around?" she asked.

"Haven't you already been on the Tour?" Nick returned. "Forgot all of it already, have you?"

"Oh, stuff it," Ellie said, folding her arms. "It was only an offer, shuck-face." She grinned at Gally. "Good luck with him, kid, he does tend to go on."

"Good, maybe I can get _answers_ ," Gally said, frustration in his voice.

"You will. You'll learn about this place fast, trust me."

Gally nodded and followed Nick.

—

Gally found her after lunch. The Builders had built three rooms onto the Homestead since Ellie had gotten there, and Ellie was charged with nailing the wooden planks onto the floor of the fourth, which was really just a small storage closet. The others were nailing the walls on.

"Hey," he said. "Am I interrupting?"

"N—" Ellie caught herself. "Well, yes. But we haven't got a deadline, so…"

"Nick says the rest of today is a self-guided Tour of sorts."

"Long as you don't go into the Maze."

"Yeah. So what do I do?"

"Where've you been already?" Ellie put her hammer down.

"The Homestead."

"Obviously. Anywhere else?"

"Not really."

"Walk around, then, mate. Check out the Blood House, Gardens, whatever. My Tour day, I helped the Baggers bury a pig. Guess they're done with that today, though."

"Were you the Greenie before me?"

"Yeah."

"Who was the Greenie before you?"

"Name's Ben," Ellie said. Then, loudly, so that Ben would hear her, "He's a proper shank, he is."

"I heard that!" called Ben from outside.

Ellie grinned at that.

"Which job should I try out first?"

"Slicers. If you don't like blood, you'll know right away."

"Got it." He nodded and hesitated as if he were going to ask another question, but then walked out to go exploring. Ellie shrugged. First days were rough.

—

Ellie saw Gally again before dinner. She'd found out from Ben where the sleeping bags were stored, and had grabbed one for the newest Greenie. The walls hadn't closed yet, but the Runners were back.

"Here, kid," she called, and threw the sleeping bag to him. He caught it and fumbled a second before securing it in his arms. "A sleeping bag. Put it wherever you want, but most of us sleep over in a lawn that way near the Gardens."

"Guess that's where I'll be, too."

Ellie grinned, shouldering him in a friendly way. "How're you adjusting?"

"Still trying to figure out what the word 'shank' means."

"Honestly, me too."

"Hey, uh, how come you're the only girl?"

Ellie shrugged. "If I knew, I'd tell you. I mean, if they never send up another girl, it's obvious I've got a purpose here, isn't it? Just gotta figure out what it is."

Gally's face was priceless when the walls started closing. The horrible grinding, stone on stone, started, and he lurched away, dropping his sleeping bag to raise his hands and cover his ears. Ellie had grown used to it, so she laughed and picked up his sleeping bag, handing it back to him when he cautiously took his hands away from his head.

"Pretty bloody awesome, isn't it?" she asked as the doors clamped shut.

"No one told me they _closed_!" Gally exclaimed frantically. " _How is that possible?_ "

Ellie grinned and steered him to get dinner, letting him know that no one had an answer for him.

Newt sat with them for dinner (lasagna) at Ellie's chosen picnic table. Gally sat next to Ellie, trying hard not to touch anyone or meet anyone's eye. Ben joined them swiftly, then Stephen, then Fred, who looked at Gally with just the slightest indignant scowl reaching his face as he realized the Greenbean had taken his usual placement. Minho leapt into place next to Newt, clapping the blonde boy on the back.

"Welcome back to the Glade, shuck-face!" he cheered. Newt grinned at his plate like he was trying not to.

"Slim yourself, I never really left."

Minho's smile widened and he nudged Newt with his shoulder. Newt jostled him right back.

Dinner was strange, with Gally around. Ellie wasn't used to being superior to anyone in the hierarchy of the Glade. Having a new Greenbean was weird. He was nice, but shy, and a little blunt when it came to asking questions. Minho seemed to think he was a little annoying.

He teased the kid like he did for anyone for his blank looks and dumb questions. But Gally didn't appreciate it. Didn't seem like he had too much of a sense of humor, not that Minho tended to show prime examples of it.

Newt was enjoying his first dinner back with the Gladers, kept throwing smart-aleck comments around. Ellie kept grinning kindly at Ben or Gally to remind them she was on their sides no matter what shuck-faced comment the others made.

Ben was excited for another Greenie, so Ellie let him take Gally back to the sleeping lawn. Newt and Minho lingered, when everyone else left, so she lingered with them, not really talking.

Nick suddenly sat down across from Ellie. Newt's eyes twitched up to look at him, but his head didn't move.

"Hey, Nick," Ellie said, baffled. He'd never sat with them. Not once.

"Hey," he replied, elbows resting on the table. "I think now's about time to talk about that Gathering we held." He glanced at Newt, who was still watching him.

Ellie leaned back from the table. "The one about you shanks talking about a girl showing up?"

"That's the one." Nick inhaled deeply. "Look. Probably an awkward discussion to have. But when we finally got a girl, the _only_ girl, _ever_ …We talked about it. Said we'd wait for the next Greenie to come up, see if they'd give us another girl. They didn't."

"Unless Gally's got a secret he's not telling," Minho muttered, almost too quietly to hear. Ellie offered him a smirk.

"Point is," Nick continued, "We think, if we're supposed to stay here forever, we're going to need to…procreate. Since you're the only girl, that means you're our only option for…you know…sex." Nick sat back and waited for Ellie to get offended.

Ellie frowned, in thought.

Newt shook his head in frustration. "Told you, Nick, we can't just force her to—"

"No," Ellie cut him off, meeting Nick's eyes. "It makes sense, doesn't it? All boys and then a girl." She folded her arms. "It's the logical conclusion, _reproducing_."

Nick seemed relieved. Newt looked surprised she hadn't gone mental at Nick's statement.

" _Except_. I've already considered this." Ellie glanced around at everyone at the table awkwardly, sighing. "Right, remember _you_ made it awkward in the first place, not me."

"'Course," Nick said off-handedly, leaning forward again.

"Right, well," Ellie continued, "It's been a month since I've been here. Full thirty days. What happens to girls _every month_ like clockwork?" No one answered. Ellie took a deep breath. "Bloody _periods_. Know what they're for? Letting girls know they're still fertile, can still have _kids_. So guess what I can't do."

"You're sterile," Nick sighed.

"Don't bloody _sigh,_ Nick, if anything, I think it's probably a good omen." Nick glanced up skeptically. "They sent you an infertile girl, shouldn't that mean we're _not_ supposed to stay here forever?"

Newt smiled. _Not forever._

"You think you're supposed to be a sign of _hope_?"

Ellie shrugged. "They could've just sent up another guy."

Nick considered. "I guess you're right."

Ellie spread her hands and grinned. " _Now_ can we throw a party? I'd say a hope signal is cause for one."

Nick got up from the table. "Nice try, Ellie. Maybe we can send down a request for some colorful paper plates and party hats."

Ellie sniggered. _Nick, in a party hat_. Nick offered a thin smile and walked away.

"Well," Minho said. "Now that we've made it thoroughly weird. I'm gonna go to bed. G'night, shanks."

"Same here." Ellie stood.

Newt nodded, grabbed his crutches, and set off towards the Homestead.

—

Another month.

Another Greenie, Stan, and Gally grew more confident, joined the Builders with Ellie and Ben.

Another hundred jokes, and Stephen and Ben were growing closer.

Another thousand sarcasm stand-offs with Minho, and he was running out into the Maze with a grin on his face, finding the perfect start to their sass that afternoon.

Another million conversations, and Ellie and Newt convinced themselves that growing feelings for the other were imaginary and nothing more.

"So Henry's finally letting you sleep in the lawn again, is he."

"Don't get too excited."

"Hah."

Another four visits from the Box, and Ellie sent down a request for a Santa hat for Nick so she could call him Jolly Old Saint Nick.

—

"We have to," Teresa said to Dr. Paige.

"No."

—

Close encounters with Grievers left Ellie considering the Maze. _Every day,_ Minho, Owen, Hank, and Rick left from their doors and ran all day to map the Maze. No breaks, ever. She spoke to Newt about it.

"The Runners never get a break?"

"We can't take that chance."

"What chance?"

"That somewhere, in the Maze, there might be a door that might appear, and if the Runners are taking a day, they'll miss it."

"Why not just have more Runners?"

"It's not easy to be a Runner. Not everyone can take the Maze."

Something in his voice made Ellie stop her questions. There was that deep darkness around him again, something she hadn't sensed for a while. Or maybe she'd just become accustomed to it.

Newt became an unofficial Track-hoe.

Stan became a Bricknick.

Ellie kept singing, and made the Gladers smile with her jokes and puns. Spreading hope that they would get out, or if they didn't, at least it wasn't _so_ bad here.

"You know what makes me sad?" Ellie asked Ben one night.

"What?" Ben didn't need to look at her.

"I bet there were a lot of books that I really loved back in the rest of the world. And now I can't remember a bloody word of any of them."

"Yeah… Movies, too. TV shows."

"People."

"Food."

"Bet the real world had a lot more opportunity for puns."

"How could you survive if it didn't?"

"It'd be so _pun_ fair."

" _Wow_." Ben had been working on developing an immunity.

"I guess if we're here because this is a prison, I assume I'm being _pun_ ished for _pun-bearable_ puns."

"You said it wasn't a prison."

"Did you just ignore both of those puns," Ellie said it more like a warning than a question.

Ben grinned, putting his hands behind his head. "You said we were gonna get out of here eventually. Now you're saying it's a prison?"

"Hell no. If it _is_ a prison, I guess just only teenage boys ever commit crimes in the world now. And me."

"Who says there's not another prison for girls?" Ben suggested. Ellie hadn't considered that.

"And they sent just one guy up with them?" She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking. "That'd be interesting." She sighed: _Guh_. "Someday, Ben, we're getting out of here, and we're gonna figure the shuck out what the klunk is going on here."

"How're we gonna do that, neither of us are Runners."

"Fight me."

Ben got up on an elbow suddenly. "Woah. You're not thinking about—"

"Shut your face, Ben. Go to sleep."

"No, hang on, you're not saying you want to be a _Runner_?"

"I never said that."

"Okay, _good_. Don't you dare go out there getting yourself stung by Grievers. You're my _friend._ Seriously, what would I do if you got killed?"

Ellie got up on her elbow to grin teasingly at him. "Guess you'd just have to seduce Stephen on your own."

"Shut up." Ben flopped down. "Just didn't want you to be in danger."

"Yeah, yeah, Benny. Go to sleep. We've got work tomorrow."


	4. Jekyll and Hyde

**Edit 7/30/18: Trigger Warnings - Character Death, Suicidal Tendencies**

* * *

Ellie had been in the Glade for two and a half months.

She'd been thinking hard about being a Runner. It made her feel guilty, knowing her non-Runner friends would worry. But she couldn't shake a feeling. And, she knew she needed to talk it out.

So she went to Newt.

She couldn't go to Ben. Or Gally, Gally'd been told, like every other Greenie, that the Maze led only to certain death. Stan was nice, curious, and she'd become his friend, like she had for everyone else. But Minho's vivid description of the slug-like mechanical Grievers had put him in the same mindset as everyone else.

But maybe, just maybe, Newt might get it.

She asked to talk to him, after dinner one day, when most people were going to sleep.

"Hey, Salamander."

Newt started, looked up and smiled. He was sitting on his sleeping bag, looking troubled, and like he definitely wasn't going to be sleeping. "What, you're not gonna sleep?"

"Well, I am," Ellie sat and brought her knees to her chest. "Are you?"

"Yeah, of course."

Ellie grinned. She half wanted to say something about how he always had nightmares, and never spoke about them, as if she hadn't noticed. "Hey, I was just thinking…Look, about being a Runner…"

Newt straightened suddenly, looking intensely at her. "What about it?" he demanded.

Ellie sighed. "I think I want to—"

"Don't."

Ellie's eyebrows twitched and she looked away.

"Sorry," Newt said, relenting, sort of. "But—the Maze, it's not," he cut himself off. "It changes you. It's maddening."

"Maddening. _You're_ not mad." When Newt said nothing, Ellie shrugged. "I just…feel like there's got to be something I'm supposed to do. This can't be my whole life, sitting around here all day, while people run out there and look for something _I'm_ supposed to say exists. What if there's _no_ way out, and because of me, people are risking their lives to find something that's not there?"

Newt said nothing. The same thing had been on his mind. The same thing had been on his mind since he'd jumped, but Ellie didn't know that. He met her eyes.

" _I_ should be risking my life, Newt," Ellie said. "If I'm the hope sign, it should be me."

Newt's eyes traveled away. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

"Talk to Minho about it," Newt murmured finally.

 _That stung._ As Newt lay down and turned his back on Ellie, she swallowed a lump in her throat that had risen suddenly. It burnt more than it should've that he didn't approve. Ellie stood slowly. He didn't believe she could do it.

She wanted to say something, but instead she just walked back to her sleeping bag.

For a week, Ellie fought with herself over whether she should talk to Minho, like Newt had said, or not. Newt was acting careful around her. He probably thought she was mad at him, and Ellie had definitely though he was mad at her, so they both danced around an apology.

That same week, another Runner got stung: Hank. Ellie didn't know him too well, but he seemed similar to Minho. Sarcastic, sassy…mostly likable, except when he'd had a bad day. Two days after he woke up, he was most definitely having a bad day. Ellie had somehow managed to get _five splinters_ in her right hand, and down the hall, she and Clint heard Hank starting to yell at Henry.

Edward pushed in front of his friend and yelled right back in Henry's defense. Ellie heard the door slam and the yelling stopped. Ellie clenched her hand as a test as angry footsteps paced down the hall. She expected Edward, but it was Henry who thumped down the stairs, his face contorted in anxious anger. Clint turned to look, but Henry just rammed into the door violently and left.

Edward followed quickly, his hands balled into fists, his face furious.

"Of all the _ungrateful_ slintheads," he fumed. He pointed back upstairs. "That stupid _shuck,"_ his voice raised steadily, "was nursed back to health by Henry, and what does he say?! ' _I wish you had let me die_.'" Edwards lips curled. " _Maybe we should've let him_ ," he yelled up the stairs.

"Edward, you know—" Clint tried.

" _Shut up_ ," Edward roared, clapping his hands to his head and glowering at Clint. "Just shut up, Clint." He slammed the door open and stalked out.

Ellie exchanged a glance with Clint, and then they both got up to follow Edward. The guy could be dangerous while he was like this.

They exited the Homestead and swung their heads around to find Edward and Henry. Edward was stamping off to the opposite side of the Glade. Henry was standing stock-still next to a picnic table, his back to them.

—

Newt had seen it too. Henry rarely ever got this mad. He was shaking in anger, eyes closed, lips tight. Curious as to why Henry was so furious, Newt started towards him.

"Henry?" he called. "What happened?"

Henry's eyes opened and he glared at Newt. "Hank is an ungrateful jerk, that's what happened. I spend all my time and effort these last few days trying to get him healthier, and when he wakes up, he tells me to shuck off, like he would rather have died. Next time he gets stung, I'll _let_ him snuff it. I swear, I have to worry about _everyone_ in this shucking Glade, and no one cares that I heal them. No shuckface in this place has ever thanked me for healing them, not even _you._ " Henry slammed his hand on the table.

Newt was taken aback. Henry's angry face looked a lot like Edward's—scary. Only it was scarier because Henry never got mad. Newt had known him since he'd come up in the Box. He'd been the second Greenie ever. "I'm sorry," Newt said. "I'm grateful that you healed me, I am." _Was he?_ "I'm sorry about what Hank said. Ya know the Changing unhinges people, Henry. He didn't mean it."

"Well it _sounded_ like he meant every shucking word," Henry growled.

A beetle blade was crawling on the picnic table, intrigued by Henry's fury.

"I'm sick of this place," Henry snarled. "I'm sick of the stupid sky that never rains, sick of the shucking walls, sick of the Grievers. I'm sick of the stupid _shucking beetle blades._ Who wants to watch our suffering, anyway? What sick _shank_ takes pleasure from this?!"

Henry's hand shot out and slammed onto the top of the beetle blade.

"Don't—" Newt tried to say, but the beetle blade cut him short.

Henry's hand trapped the silver robot onto the table, but as he did so, the creature let out a loud hiss. Before either of them could do anything, the beetle blade's head shot away from its body and rocketed through Henry's throat.

" _No!"_ Newt screamed.

Henry choked in shock, and stumbled backwards, hands on his throat. Blood gushed through his fingers, and his legs gave out. Newt tried to step forward to catch him, but pain lanced through his leg, and Henry fell to the ground. Newt stumbled and barely caught himself.

" _Clint_ ," Newt yelled. "Edward!"

He knelt clumsily and put his hand over Henry's on the boy's throat as his eyes rolled frantically, tears already beginning to stream from the pain.

Clint was there in a second, pressing his hand over Henry's and trying to find the exit wound with his other. Other Gladers had come running at Newt's cries, staring in horror at Henry's body. Edward dropped to his knees next to his friend, crying, "No, no, no, no!" He pushed Newt away.

Ellie materialized next to Newt, yelling over the noise of everyone else, "What happened?"

"He touched a beetle blade," Newt said, feeling disconnected, like he was watching from a distance. He felt so helpless. "He touched a beetle-blade, and it killed him."

"Henry?" Clint asked. "Hey, stay with us, man." He shook Henry's shoulder with his free hand, but Henry's eyes were already glazed over. Blood leaked out of his mouth and neck.

"Henry, don't leave me, shank," Edward was crying. A sob escaped his lips. "You're my best friend, Henry, you can't leave me. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. Don't you…" Edward trailed off into muttering, shaking Henry's limp shoulders.

Ellie covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes tearing up. Newt stared down at the dead Med-jack, in shock. How could Henry be gone?

" _No_ ," Edward howled. Clint had backed off, and was on his knees watching forlornly. His hand was soaked from trying to stem Henry's bleeding. Edward picked up Henry's body and hugged him, crying into his shoulder. "Nooooo, please, no."

Nick and Alby were there, pushing to the front of the Gladers that had formed a kind of circle around the body. Alby stopped cold, staring down at the scene. No one had ever seen Edward cry before. Nick covered his mouth with a hand, in shock.

"What—?"

Tears were streaming from Clint's eyes, too. Ellie had squeezed hers shut, both hands clamped to her mouth to stop herself from sobbing. Newt's eyes traveled around, feeling like his heart couldn't sink any lower into the abyss.

Henry was gone.

—

It should've been raining.

Just _once,_ in the stupid, rainless Glade, it should've rained for Henry.

Edward had hardly spoken a word to anyone since Henry had died. Now, he stood with folded arms, staring at the Baggers as they dug Henry's grave. Most of the Gladers were there, gathered around as Jackson and Billy lowered Henry into the hole.

Clint looked sick.

Newt looked broken. Like he'd never even _had_ Henry to patch him up. His grief tore Ellie up almost as much as Edward's.

Fred was silent. More so than usual. Normally, his presence was warmer, and now, looking at him, it felt empty.

Ben stood near Ellie, rubbing his arm, staring. He hadn't seen the death.

The Gladers stayed around until the hole was full of dirt covering Henry's body. Billy drove a white wooden cross marker with Henry's name on it into the ground.

Gladers lingered for a few seconds before turning to walk away, like they were praying.

 _Alright, Henry,_ Ellie thought, raising her eyes to look at the grave marker. _I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know whether ghosts are real. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For anything and everything. And I wish you were still here, so… God. I don't know._ Ellie looked down again and swallowed hard. And walked away.

—

Ellie woke early the next morning, not that she'd slept very well. The walls hadn't yet opened. Ben was asleep, and so were Gally and Stan, the nearest sleeping bags to her. Several yards away, Newt was sitting up, and looked like he had been for hours. These days his eyes seemed more and more sunken.

Ellie got to her feet and crept over to sit by him.

"Hi, again," she said quietly. "How're you holding up?"

He looked over at her like he'd just noticed her. His eyes were watering. He took a breath like he was going to say something, and then didn't.

Ellie sighed. "Yeah, me too." She hugged her knees loosely to her chest.

"I could've saved him," Newt said quietly, after a while. "The beetle blade was right there, and I could've stopped him from touching it." He closed his eyes for a long time. "Edward and Clint…"

Ellie looked at him with concern piercing her heart. "Newt…" she said, leaning her shoulder against his in an attempt to reassure him. "You and Henry spent too much time worrying about everyone but yourselves. His death was _not_ your fault. No one knew beetle blades could do something like that."

Newt didn't say anything.

The Runners had gotten up, all walking to the Map Room. Hank was coming out of the Homestead. Ellie closed her eyes. It seemed wrong to go on about the normal Glade business with Henry six feet under.

"It's _not_ your fault," growled a voice from behind them. "Either of your faults."

Ellie turned to look. Edward was standing near them, eyes sunken, looking like he hadn't caught a minute of sleep. Like he hadn't even tried. His eyes flicked tiredly down to meet hers, and then he stuck his hands in his pockets and stalked away. If Ellie hadn't been so certain that there was no alcohol in the Glade, she would've been sure that Edward would've been drinking, even if he was just a teenager.

"Have you been up all night?" Ellie asked quietly, after Edward had gone.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"To be honest, I haven't slept well in a while."

Ellie honestly didn't know what to say.

"Are you still thinking of being a Runner, shank?"

Ellie smiled for a second, and then it dropped away. "Yesterday kinda put it on hold, ya know?"

"Yeah, but before that. Talked to Minho about it yet?"

"I thought about it. But not yet."

"Well…If you get out there, make sure to be careful."

Ellie turned to him in surprise. "Are you saying you're okay with it?"

Newt shrugged and didn't look at her. "It's your life. You wanna risk it everyday in the Maze, sure. I just want you to be careful." He glanced at her.

She looked away to hide a smile. "Believe me, Salamander, as bloody much as you don't want me to get hurt, _I_ don't want me to get hurt _way more_."

"Ellie," Newt asked after a grin, "What do you think about death?"

She frowned at him. "What, like, what's it like?"

"Yeah. Is it better or worse than being here?"

Ellie shrugged. "I'm inclined to think death's worse than anything. After you die you haven't got hopes or dreams anymore. Ya know. Life might suck, but there's the hope it might suck less in the future." She shrugged again. "I don't know."

Newt nodded thoughtfully, staring out across the Glade at a point somewhere out in space. He squinted slightly as Edward's figure disrupted his staring. He waved his hand in Edward's general direction to point him out to Ellie. "Where's he off to?"

Ellie looked. "You keep asking questions I don't have good answers to. Why's it even matter?"

Newt's eyes widened suddenly, and he grabbed his crutches to get up. " _That's_ why," he pointed.

Edward was on an interception course with Hank, who was jogging towards his Door, ready to go into the Maze. Even as Newt was getting up, Edward broke into a sprint straight for the Runner.

' _Maybe we should've let him die,'_ Edward had said.

Ellie bounced up in a second, and was running towards him. She left Newt in the dust in a second, and behind her, he yelled for Nick and Alby.

Ahead, Edward closed the distance between him and Hank in moments, and before Ellie knew it, Edward had thrown himself at him. Hank fell in surprise, and Edward yelled, " _It's your fault!_ You killed him!"

He dragged the Runner up to his feet and punched him in the face, _hard._ Hank scrambled backwards, but Edward kicked at his stomach. "It's your fault he's dead!"

"Edward, stop!" Ellie screamed. Edward slammed his foot into Hank's shoulder, and he collapsed onto the ground, yelling.

Ellie arrived in time to save Hank from a concussion. She used her momentum to shove Edward away from his downed opponent and kept going to force him backwards. Edward stumbled and turned on her, pointing accusingly at Hank. "It's _his_ fault Henry's dead. He died because of _that_ ," Edward spat furiously.

"Well, you can't just kill him," Ellie argued.

" _Try me_ ," Edward shrieked, and flung himself at Hank, who had gotten up.

Ellie blocked him again, and caught a fist in the face. Pain exploded in her cheekbone. She stumbled, but dragged Edward with her. He ripped himself from her and went after Hank again.

"Edward!" yelled Nick from nearby. "Stop!"

Edward ignored it and got Hank into a chokehold. Hank threw a blind punch behind him into his assaulter's face, and Edward cried out and threw Hank to the ground. Hank bounced up almost instantly, turning to Edward. A knife appeared in his hand from out of his Runner's pack.

Edward narrowed his eyes and snarled, "You wouldn't."

He balled his fists and went at Hank, disregarding the danger. Hank swung the knife at him, but Edward blocked and elbowed Hank in the face. Hank stumbled away but Edward grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard, until Hank dropped the knife. He shoved Hank away and picked it up.

Alby appeared behind Edward and hooked his elbows around his shoulders to hold him back. Nick materialized, stern-faced and muscles bulging, and practically _threw_ Hank behind him so he himself was in between Hank and Edward.

"Do you want to explain to me," Nick snarled in his most commanding, intimidating voice, "why the _shuck_ you both decided to break one of our _most important rules_?!"

"He killed Henry!" roared Edward, struggling violently.

"No, I didn't," Hank yelled back. "I didn't _want_ him dead."

"You did! If you had been shucking _grateful_ , Henry wouldn't have been killed!"

"Shut it," Alby growled, yanking Edward back.

"You know what happens when you break this rule, Edward," Nick said angrily.

The four Baggers showed up then with sturdy wooden spears. Will, the Keeper, looked around at the scene and growled in a deeper voice than Ellie expected, "What the hell's happening?"

"Edward went ballistic," snarled Alby, still struggling to keep his charge under control.

Will looked Edward in the eye and studied his face. "Because of Henry."

Edward's head twitched into something that might've been a nod, eyes wild. Will stepped forward and grabbed Edward's arm, pulling him away from Alby and snatching the knife away from him. Will looked at Nick. "Slammer?"

Nick nodded gravely, and Will began to drag Edward away. Jackson went with him, leveling a spear at Edward's back. Hank cooled down as Edward was shown away, a small smile even slipping onto his face.

"Don't you smile, shuckface," Alby growled at him, and Nick turned to see. The smile dropped from Hank's lips. Nick pointed angrily.

"And _you. You_ pulled a knife. Two weeks of nights in the Slammer. But you keep running the Maze in the day. Got that, slinthead?"

Hank nodded and started towards the Door, but Nick caught his arm to add something. "And _don't you dare_ use a knife on _anyone._ Ever again."

"Yeah. Okay." And Hank jogged away.

The Walls began to open.

Ellie looked around at the remaining people. Nick folded his arms and glowered around, looking very much like a wolf. Alby was breathing heavily, trying to call himself down. Billy and Gordon had lowered their spears and were starting to step back towards the Homestead.

Newt called from behind. "You alright?"

Ellie turned and realized he was, in fact, speaking to her. "Yeah, I'm good." She lowered her voice. "Does Edward get Banished?"

"You're _good_?" Newt touched her cheekbone with a finger and it came away bloody. He raised an eyebrow. " _Good_?"

Ellie frowned and tried the same test, with the same results. She took a moment to take the blood in, and then looked back at Newt.

"Yep," she said cheerfully. He rolled his eyes. "Is Edward going to be Banished?"

Newt looked at Nick, then down. "Yes."

Ellie's heart practically broke. Again.

Henry, now Edward. As irritating and rage-inducing as Edward was, Ellie couldn't picture the Glade without him. She met Newt's sorrowful eyes, and closed hers with a sigh.

She didn't let him take her to the Med-jacks. She couldn't do it. She washed her face before breakfast, and sat with her friends staring silently at the food. Ben put his hand on her shoulder for reassurance and Ellie thought she saw Stephen's face twitch as he did so.

Working was dull. She didn't sing and didn't make jokes. Hardly anyone else talked, either. Word had spread fast about Edward's Banishing. Ellie had never seen one, but the way everyone was acting, and the way she imagined it, it seemed like the worst thing in the world. Not even Edward deserved it, if it was like she thought.

Before dinner, Ellie went to try to talk to Edward in the Slammer. She peered through the small window in the door and saw Edward sitting stock-still with his back to the wall in the corner.

"Edward?"

His head rolled onto his shoulder until his eyes glinted at her through the darkness of the room, but he didn't say anything. Creepy, as usual.

"They're going to Banish you." She waited for a second, and got nothing. "Why'd you go after Hank?"

Edward sucked in a breath. "To get Banished."

"What? You _wanted_ to be Banished?"

"What?! There's nothing left for me here, not now. Henry was my only friend, and I _can't_ live here without him."

"Edward, you could've. The rest of us could be your friends, too."

" _No_ , slinthead you don't _get_ it," barked Edward, on his feet in a second, advancing on the door and angrily grabbing a bar in the window. "I _can't_ live here without Henry. I _can't_. I can't do it." His head sank until Ellie couldn't see his face. "I can't. Now go away." He turned from the door with finality.

Ellie stepped back and hesitated before turning and doing as he said.

—

The Banishing was worse than she could've imagined. Will dragged Edward out to the North Door, where all of the Gladers had gathered. Edward was coming quietly, not protesting at all. Newt limped up next to Ellie, having graduated to only one crutch. Ben, Fred, Gally, Stan, and Stephen were to the left of her. Ben caught her eye, looking anxious. She wanted to reassure him somehow, but there was nothing reassuring about this.

Everyone was silent. The Keepers were standing in a cluster around a long metal pole with detachable sections. At the end, there was some kind of leather collar.

"Are we going to have to use this, Edward?" Nick asked, hoisting the end of the metal pole up.

Edward threw Will off of his arm and glared at Hank. "Not if he goes with me."

Hank stepped forward, balling his fists. "What is your _problem_ with me, slinthead? I didn't kill your precious Henry, he did that himself."

"Do everyone a favor, Hank, and shut the shuck up," Alby barked harshly.

Edward still glowered at Hank. "He goes with me or I go out fighting." Will grabbed his arm, but he writhed violently out of the Bagger's grip. " _He's_ the one who _killed Henry. He's_ the one who pulled a knife."

"It was self defense!" yelled Hank, coming closer to Edward. "And I'd do it again!"

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH," Minho roared at him and shoved him backwards so hard that he fell over, clearly pissed that one of his Runners would've done something like that.

 _Please,_ Ellie pleaded mentally. _Please, just let it be over._

Nick was coming up behind Edward, dragging the pole and the collar with him. Will was blocking Edward's path to Hank, and Nick fastened the leather collar around Edward's neck. Edward's hands flew to it, clawing at it.

The Keepers all grabbed a section of the pole and used it to pull Edward away from Hank, swinging him around so that he was aimed towards the walls.

Newt checked a watch around his wrist, and as he did so, the walls began to close. The Keepers shoved Edward forward towards the wall. He stumbled, and barely caught his balance before they did it again. Ellie caught a glimpse of Frankie's face. He was forcing himself to stay calm. Minho's was stern and determined.

"Don't watch," Newt advised her, but she disregarded him.

"Edward of the Med-jacks," Nick bellowed over the wall's noise, "This Banishing is on the account of assaulting Hank of the Runners and breaking the second biggest rule of the Glade."

Ellie thought he was going to go on, but he didn't. Instead they shoved Edward through the Walls and into the Maze, and Nick, who was in the front, detached the top of the pole and threw it into the Maze with Edward. Edward had fallen to the ground and was struggling to get up. That was the last Ellie ever saw him before the walls slammed closed.

A tear had slipped down her cheek while she wasn't paying attention, even though she hadn't been close to Edward. Everyone else was solemn-faced.

Will dropped his handle on the pole and turned to Hank, face neutral, as always. "Slammer. Now."

Hank nodded, looking regretful, and went with him.

—

Two days, two deaths. The next morning, no one bothered getting up as early as they usually did. When everyone did start dragging themselves from their beds, no one spoke. The groups of Gladers sat together solemnly for breakfast.

On the rocky ground outside the North Door, the leather collar and its pole had been left like the Grievers were leaving an apology for Edward. A lump rose in Ellie's throat and for a solid five minutes, she avoided eye contact with anyone, trying to hide tears in her eyes.

Ben leaned his shoulder into Stephen's, and Fred subtly slid his eyes over to look at them. Ellie never even noticed that her shoulder was against Newt's.

The Builders had used up their share of wood for making the Homestead, so they split up to help the other jobs. Ben helped in the Gardens with Stephen, and Newt did a bunch of exhausted eye-rolls at the two of them. Ellie went to the Bloodhouse and helped Fred out. Clint was officially named the Keeper of the Med-jacks, since he was the only one left.

—

The two weeks before the next Greenie came were spent recovering from mourning. By the time the Greenie alarm went off again, most had recovered and pushed away the empty leather collar that had been abandoned outside of the North Door the morning after Edward's Banishment. The promise of a new Greenbean was encouraging.

The newest wide-eyed question-riddled teenager was a guy named Jeff. Ellie grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the Box and told him that there was no one else to trust, so why not trust the people who were there. Nick gave him the Tour, and Stan and Jeff really hit it off.

"If we're just in the middle of a big Maze, why give the place the name 'Glade?' It's just another part of the Maze."

"I dunno. It's not really part of the Maze. It closes off. It's kind of the Glade's Maze. It's a Glaze."

That day at dinner, Ellie finally made herself pull Minho aside to talk about being a Runner. She expected him to be like Newt at first. Tell her not to, tell her it was dangerous, and whatnot. But his reaction surprised her.

"Yeah, I think you might be right."

The expression of surprise that appeared on Ellie's face prompted a smirk and a bark of a laugh. "What's that face, shank? You look like I've klunked my pants right in front of you." He sniggered, but the smile dropped from his face as he returned to the serious subject. "But seriously. I think you'd be a good Runner. I think you're _meant_ to be a Runner, actually."

"What?"

"Well, for starters, for the past _month_ , the Box's been comin' up with shuckin' running clothes for women. Second, you're supposed to be the hope sign, and if you do nothing, no one's gonna believe that klunk. Third, I've been thinking, and I decided having more than four Runners would be good. We could rotate, and everyone could get a day off every four days or so."

Ellie grinned uncontrollably. " _Yes_ , I thought that same thing!"

Minho nodded. "I'll propose it to Nick. Next Gathering, I'll make sure you're there. Might take a bit to get all the shuckers together, though. Hope you like getting all the attention, shank."

Ellie shrugged. "Just think of all the maze puns I can make."

"Wait, don't—"

"They'll be a _maz_ ing."

"Ellie no."

Ellie held up a piece of corn from her plate, which she'd brought with her because she was very hungry. "We're going to run the _maize_."

" _Ellie._ "

"I wish we had some mayonnaise so I could say mayomaze."

"Well I guess you're out of luck then so please. Stop."

Ellie grinned and started back towards the picnic table.

"Hey, wait," Minho called her back, and then lowered his voice knowingly (and more than a little teasingly). "You and Newt…are you guys, like…a _thing_?"

Ellie smirked, but her heart quickened against her will. "Hah. No." What was wrong with her?

"Mmhmm. Yeah. Sure," Minho patted her on the back, like _I don't believe you one bit but I'll pretend to, to protect your dignity._

One week later, Ellie was called into a Gathering in a room in the Homestead. She looked around at all the familiar faces of the Keepers: Minho, Winston, Frypan, Zart, Frankie, Clint, Will, Arthur, and Abe. And Alby and Nick. Minho gave her a subtle wink as Nick gestured to her seat.

"So I called a Gathering because Minho proposed Ellie as a new Runner," Nick said, standing up at the front of the room and not looking at her. "Even though we've already _got_ four perfectly good Runners."

 _Thanks, Nick._ Ellie wanted to say it out loud, but Newt had told her not to talk if she could avoid it during the proceedings. She found herself wishing that he was still a Keeper so he could be there.

"We've all got to vote on her, whether we think she should start training or not. Minho, we'll start with you. You proposed her. Why do you think she should be a Runner?"

Minho stood up. "Well, for starters, the Box has been sending us running clothes for women. Second, she volunteered to. Third, it's kind of dumb to call her a hope sign and then not let her solidify that hope. She's brave and capable, and she's got probably the best memory of any of us, unless you lot have been singing shuckin' songs behind my back." Minho looked around at the Keepers. "Plus, it's a good idea for the Runners to rotate and get a day off every once and a while." He fell silent, trying to think if there were anything else worth mentioning. He nodded. "No, and that's about it." And sat down.

"Right," Nick said, glancing at Alby, who was moodily jotting down notes on a notepad. "Frankie, you're her present Keeper, so you go."

Frankie stood and towered over everyone. "She's a good Builder," he said slowly. "She's a good, fun friend, and we all agreed at first that she was clever enough to do any one of the jobs. She's dedicated to whatever we had her do, so I think if she wants to be a Runner, she should."

 _Yes! Thank you, Frankfurter!_

"That all?" Nick asked. "Two votes yes, so far."

"Yep," Frankie said, and sat.

"Good, that. Nice and short. Clint, why don't you go now."

Clint didn't bother standing up. "I don't have an opinion. She can do whatever she wants, or whatever you guys vote on. I don't really care, no offense."

Ellie saw Nick's jaw clench, like it truly aggravated him when someone didn't make a choice. She herself wasn't very bothered. Clint was still adjusting to life without Henry and Edward, and this was his first Gathering as a Keeper.

"Winston, go ahead."

"Honestly, I think she's better as a Builder," said the Keeper of Slicers. He shrugged to show that was all he had to say.

"How do you know? We haven't seen her run yet," Frankie argued. Minho reached over and clapped him on the back to show he agreed.

"You've had your turn, Frankie, don't talk during Winston's," Nick reprimanded sternly.

Winston shrugged again, and caught Ellie's eye to make an apologetic expression, but didn't change his vote.

"Two yes, one no, one I-don't-care," Nick updated. "Siggy?"

Frypan stood, grinning and shrugging. "Sure, let her go on into the Maze. Maybe it'll save us all from her puns." He was met by a couple sniggers, and he sat down.

"Right. Zart."

"My first opinion was no, she shouldn't go. She's only been here a few months. But I think Minho and Frankie convinced me that she should. So I'm a yes."

"Will?"

"No."

Nick waited for him to say more, but Will wasn't really the type. "You wanna explain that thought process, Will?"

"She's still too new."

Nick nodded and Alby wrote it down, looking like he very much agreed with Will.

"Arthur?"

Ellie held in a gasp. _It was a_ G _arthur_ ing. Heh heh heh.

"Yes. Definite yes. Hey, maybe we could use a new pair of eyes looking down those shucking rock walls."

"Good, and Abe."

"I'm a yes, too. Everyone else already said all my reasons, so…"

"Good, got all your opinions down. Alby, I know you're negative, so do you wanna explain your reasons?"

Alby looked up. "Don't get me wrong, Ellie's great and all, but she's still new to the Glade, only been here, what, three months? She's a great Builder, so I don't see why she'd want to switch jobs. Plus, Minho mentioned the Box's been sendin' up girl supplies, which means the shanks behind all this want her to be a Runner. So why should we just go along and comply? I say we rebel."

"They did send her up as a shuck hope sign," Minho commented. "If they want us to get out, she's the one they'd have do it."

"We don't know that's why she's here," Alby grunted. "We coulda misinterpreted."

Nick nodded, looking over Alby's shoulder at the notepad. "Well, all the votes have been cashed in. I'm an I-don't-care, but even if I'd been a no, Ellie still would've won." He turned to her with a smirk of a grin on his face. "Congratulations. Enjoy risking your life out there. You start tomorrow."

—

Ben freaked out.

" _No!_ You said you weren't thinking about it! You said you wouldn't go out there!"

"Calm down, Ben," Fred said quietly. "If she wants to do it, she can."

"It's been voted on already," Minho pitched in. "Nothing to do about it now."

"Ellie, you're my best friend!" Ben protested, ignoring the other two. "What happens if you die? What happens to me?"

"You've got Stephen," Ellie pointed out. Stephen grinned and grabbed Ben's hand, and Ben looked at him in surprise. "Besides," she continued. "If I die, you'll keep on keeping on. You always do, don't you? You're not going to just roll over and give up. Come on now."

"He is right," Newt said, leaning towards Ben's argument. "You die, we're not really going to recover."

"I'm with Ben and Newt," Gally agreed. "It'll suck being a Builder if you're not there singing while we work. Don't you dare get hurt. We'd never forgive ourselves for letting you go."

"Not that we can _let_ you do anything," Newt put in quickly.

"What's so bad about the Maze?" Jeff asked, from a few steps away.

"It's bloody impossible to solve, is what," Newt said, turning to him.

"Not _impossible_ ," Minho came around to the other side of Ellie and clapped her on the back. "We're all hoping this shankette can figure the way out."

"Shankette?!" Ellie scoffed. "Alright, you _shuck_ , if that's how you wanna play."

The conversation moved on, and the group scattered to their own sleeping bags. Ben asked Ellie if she would be offended if he moved his bag closer to Stephen's. Ellie said no, she wouldn't. After all, she was still close to Gally, Stan, and Jeff. And Newt was pretty close, too.

About Newt.

Ellie had come to terms with the fact that she had a crush on him, but had tried (and mostly succeeded) to ignore it for the purpose of not being cliché. Of course the only girl in a Glade-full of guys would get together with one of them. _God_. But still, every time he laughed, she ignored butterflies in her stomach. She couldn't look him directly in the eyes. Somehow something in her told her that if she did, it would be obvious that she liked him, and she didn't intend to tell anyone.

Except Minho.

Minho already knew.

She sucked at this whole _secret_ thing.

—

The next day, Minho kicked her awake (being careful not to actually hurt her).

"Good morning, sunshank. Rise and shine. Got a big day of running up ahead."

Ellie yawned at the same time she snickered at the word _sunshank_. She woke quickly and bit into the apple Minho held out to her before following him to the Homestead. The storage closet she'd built a while ago had begun to be used for Runners' supplies that they'd moved from where they'd just lain in the Map Room.

He unlocked it and entered, rooting around in a box and tossing a watch, some running shoes, running clothes, and a sports bra at her.

"I assume those are your size. Shuck-faces down the Box most likely customized them special for you." He turned his back on her so she could put them on safely.

"Yay, I'm special," Ellie said with a comical lack of enthusiasm, changing quickly and then lacing the shoes onto her feet. They felt good. In the pockets of her running shorts were hair-ties, and she tied her hair into a tight ponytail.

Minho turned cautiously around, and once he realized she was fully clothed, handed her a knife like the one Hank had pulled on Edward. She swallowed and took it.

"'S just a knife, shank," Minho grunted, and passed her a backpack, which she promptly put on. It was nice and tight, good for running. He took the knife back from her and stuck it somewhere on the side of the pack. "Knife goes here. Water on the other side, and we fill the middle with grub. I get one too."

"Phenomenal," Ellie said, jogging around in a circle as a test.

"You're shuckin' ridiculous."

"Why thank you."

They made a stop by the kitchens and packed their backpacks with pre-prepared food. Each of them chugged a glass of water, quickly used the bathroom, and left. Minho quickly explained how the Maze worked and changed, and Ellie pretended to understand more of his explanation than she actually did. He brought her to the West Door just after it had opened, and looked at her.

"Ready?"

Ellie grinned lopsidedly. "Sure, why the shuck not."

"Good!" And he was off, running into the Maze. Ellie followed quickly, surprised at how easy running was. It actually felt good, like she was letting off steam. A grin pushed onto her face.

Minho expertly turned one way after the other, occasionally bringing his knife out and chopping off pieces of vine on the walls as breadcrumbs.

"You do it," he tossed over his shoulder after a while, and then Ellie brought out her knife and cut off a vine at every turn.

 _Don't run with scissors, kids,_ a voice in her mind said, and it felt like a memory.

They turned back at a dead end, and Ellie started mapping the Maze in her mind, knowing exactly which direction to run in to get back to the Glade. She was proud of herself. The running got hard at around the forty-five minute mark, and they slowed slightly to make it more do-able.

Minho pointed out the sections that supposedly opened every few days, and gestured at some slime smeared on the ground and wall, saying, "Griever," and a chill ran through Ellie. The realization that she was in an unsolvable labyrinth with the Gladers' own personal monsters hit her like a truck.

After every hour, the running got to be too exhausting, and Minho called for a twenty minute break. They ate little protein bars and sipped their water and waited for their muscles to recover. At one point Minho pointed to a plaque on the wall that read: _World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department._

"Wicked," Ellie murmured in awe, tapping the plaque.

Lunch was a _thirty_ minute break, hurray!

They continued until late in the day, when Ellie started worrying about getting back in time for the doors. Minho slowed down at a dead end and turned.

"Alright, shuckface, time to see if you're any freaking good at this. Find our way back."

"Got you bro," Ellie stopped on a dime and started running back the way they'd come. Minho followed her closely. She made a wrong turn once, but she rectified her mistake and they got back to the long passageway to the West Door well before the walls were due to close.

Newt had had the most stressful day he'd had in a while. His progress as a Track-hoe had been severely hampered not just by his leg, but by worry. He was so bloody concerned about Ellie that he couldn't concentrate. He ran through scenarios in his head. What if they got caught by a Griever? What if they couldn't find their way back? What if they got trapped in the Maze? He'd never forgive himself if she got hurt.

The word that Ellie had volunteered to be a Runner had spread like wildfire through the Gladers. Everyone was talking about how she was the hope sign, how they couldn't believe she hadn't been made a Runner as soon as everyone figured that out. How they were worried about her in the Maze. Most people tried to make puns to make up for her absence. Ben and the Builders tried to remember some of the songs she'd sung so their work wouldn't be as tuneless. Newt looked around at the Glade he'd known since he could remember and marveled at the way Ellie had changed it since she'd gotten there.

He knew exactly when the Runners tended to get back, and was waiting outside the West Door (Minho's assigned door) for five minutes before Ellie and Minho showed up down the corridor. The tension in his shoulders released and his stomach un-knotted.

He saw Ellie's face light up in a smile when she saw him. "See, Salamander?" she called as they approached the door. "I'm still kickin'." She jumped in the air and did a dramatic rockstar kick that made her stumble as she landed.

"Yeah, I can see," Newt said, turning to walk with her and Minho as they came through the walls into the Glade. "What did you think of the Maze?"

Ellie did the face that everyone had come to associate with the coming of puns. "I guess you could say it's—"

Minho clamped his hand over her mouth and held it there, preventing her from saying the pun he knew was coming.

"A _maz_ ing," Newt finished for her, and high-fived her as Minho groaned and took his hand away from her mouth.

"Shuckin' shuckfaced shucks with your shuck puns and your shucking shuckery," he muttered as he continued towards the Map Room. Ellie and Newt followed, grinning.

Newt put his hand on Ellie's shoulder as they went. "Glad you're not dead."

"Okay, Captain Cheerful," Ellie said with a surprised laugh. "Bit dramatic there, don'tcha think?"

"Slim it, it's bloody dangerous in there. Enjoy the buggin' Map Room, I'll be off."

"Alright, Salamander."

The other Runners were already in the Map Room when Ellie and Minho entered, sketching away on sheets of paper. Rick and Owen looked up and lifted their hands in an almost-wave, and Hank didn't even bother. Wordlessly, Minho picked up his own sheet of graph paper and started drawing. Ellie looked over his shoulder as he drew the branching Maze on the paper, starting from the door. He handed Ellie a pencil and told her to correct him if he got anything wrong.

He was only wrong twice, and Ellie fixed the mistakes, even though she was positive that he was just testing her. After he finished, twenty or thirty minutes later, they stood back and looked at their handiwork.

"That everything?" he asked.

"All we got to," Ellie responded, and he went over to a box to the side of the room to pull out a stack of paper. He dropped them on the table next to that day's map and held it next to the one from the day before.

"Sometimes the Maze repeats itself," he muttered as he compared that day's map to previous maps. "We gotta check to see if there's ever gonna be a shuck _pattern_ to this heaping helping of klunk."

The Runners spent forty more minutes staring at the paper, comparing their maps to each others and the maps from days before, only finding a few repeats that came at irregular intervals. There was a lot of sighing and shifting in seats, until finally Minho stood and called it a day.

"Alright, I've had it looking at these shuck things. My eyes are aching like a mother. I'm going to get me some grub."

"I'll second the shuck out of that," Ellie agreed, stretching.

At dinner, they had to squeeze all of the Builders into their picnic table, along with Ellie's normal friend group.

Frankie, Dave, Alex, Gally, Ben, Stephen, Fred, Stan, and Jeff shot questions at her about her first day in the Maze. The newer ones, like Gally, Stan, and Jeff, asked mostly about whether it was as scary as everyone said it was. Everyone else asked how she held up under the pressure.

Did she see a Griever? No.

Did you try climbing the vines? No, but other people have, according to Minho.

She told them about the creepy plaques on the walls of the Maze—World in Catastrophe; Killzone Experiment Department. They went around theorizing about what the words meant. The first part, they decided, was obvious.

"World in Catastrophe—pretty bloody blatant, I'd say," Newt said. "Second part, I assume the experiment is just buggin' mice waltzing about in a miniature maze tryin' to find the way out."

"Aren't there supposed to be electrocuting passages in that kind of maze, though?" Dave asked.

" _Shockingly_ , we didn't run across any of those," Ellie commented.

"Grievers are plenty to deal with, I'll say," Minho put in. "I, for one, am not gonna complain about the lack of shuckin' _lightning_ we've encountered."

"Still," Gally said. "If the world's in catastrophe, what's the point of putting a bunch of shanks in a maze?"

"Yeah, there's gotta be some connection," agreed Stan, and Jeff nodded along, having not been in the Glade a long enough time to have an educated opinion.

Frankie spoke up. "Killzone—that's gotta mean the Maze, right? A zone you kill stuff in?"

"Or get killed in," added Alex.

"You're a cheerful shank, aren't you."

"Why is it the Maze Experiment Department, though? What could they learn from the Maze?"

Fred looked up, having been thinking hard as the others spoke. "Or are _we_ the Killzone Experiment Department?"

Everyone went silent. Fred lowered his voice to his normal quiet level. "Think about it. _We're_ experimenting in the Maze. We figured out no one could ever survive a night in it. We figured out the doors always close at night. We're trying to map our way out."

Ellie's friend group looked around at each other.

"You're saying _we're_ the shuck Creators?" Minho demanded.

"Why would we wipe our own memories, though?" That was Ben.

"And why send ourselves up into a place where we don't know anything where we might die?"

"World in Catastrophe," Newt said quietly, his eyes darting up to look around.

A chill went down Ellie's spine. They'd been working towards getting out of a sucky place that might've actually been better than the outside world?

"No, but we can _remember_ the outside world," Ben protested. "Well, I mean, not _remember_ it, but we know how it works. It doesn't seem that bad to me from here."

"I'm with Ben," Stephen agreed.

"Yeah, but if we wiped our memories, we could've wiped the catastrophe part," said Alex.

"And we _would've_ if 'catastrophe' means we all went through tragedies," added Dave.

"But if this shuck place is so much better than the freakin' outside, we would've given ourselves some shuck message to let ourselves know we ought to stay in here," Minho put in.

"Yeah, we can't just bloody _stay_ in here for the rest of our lives," Ellie said.

"Well, we _could_."

"We could not!"

"We _shouldn't_ ," Newt slammed his palm down on the table. "We can't just go trustin' some bloody plaques on the wall of a Maze that's killed a bunch of our own. We gotta get out. And if it turns out it freakin' sucks out there, we'll come right the shuck back in here, won't we? _Without_ wiping our buggin' memories."

"I'll drink to that," Ellie agreed, taking a tame sip of her water.

"Same here," Minho affirmed. "I'll find the way out of that shuck Maze if it's with the last breath I ever take."


	5. Remember, Remember

**Thank you to all of the reviewers from the 1st Chapter to now! We both appreciate the effort you take to spare a moment just to review.**

 **:) -The author**

* * *

The second day of running was the worst. Ellie woke up sore and achy. She kicked herself mentally for forgetting to stretch the day before.

"Hurts like bloody hell, doesn't it," Newt commented from nearby as he heard her groan with pain. Ellie had gotten used to him waking up way earlier than most Gladers. "Stretch, next time, shankette."

"Lord, I hope that nickname doesn't stick, Salamander," Ellie said, limping past him and making the mistake of looking him in the eyes. Butterflies forced their way into her stomach, and she became that much more tensed. He had very pretty eyes, though.

 _No._

 _Stop that._

 _I will not be so cliché. I will not have a crush on him._

Ellie walked to the supply closet and got dressed in her special running clothes and strapped her pack on, and readied herself to meet Minho at the West Door. That day, he handed her a notebook and pencil and told her to mark down where the corridors differed from the day before.

—

That morning became her morning routine for the next two weeks. She only stayed with Minho because she was still getting comfortable with being in the Maze. It was important to be confident when you left to be on your own. The running got easier after she started to stretch every day after she got back from the Maze. She made a habit of slapping the Killzone Experiment Department signs as she passed them, symbolically attempting to slap the Creators in their collective face. Assuming the Gladers weren't secretly the Creators.

 _Although some of the Gladers might could use a good slap to the face_ , she thought with a grin. _And I'm sure I'm one of them._

She started pressuring Nick again to let the Gladers have a proper party. A night off. Something.

"Maybe later."

"Come on, Nick, it's been almost four months since I've been here, and not a single party. Glader's need _something_ to look forward to. Take it from your friendly neighborhood hope signal."

"We haven't got the time. We haven't got enough resources. Everyone has a job to do. There's nowhere here to _hold_ a proper party. Imagine how a party would screw up the order around here."

"Wow, just call you Nickel because you make sense. But, dude, come on."

"Slim yourself, Ellie. I'll think about it and let you know if the answer magically becomes yes."

"Alright, fine, Nick-name. If you must."

Nick sighed and walked off.

Stephen gave up the Track-hoe life to be a Builder with Ben, and Ellie grinned harder than she probably should've.

Meanwhile, Newt made his own habit of waiting for Ellie and Minho to get back from the Maze every day. That should've clued Ellie into the fact that he was crushing _hard_ on her. And, unlike her, he didn't bother denying it to himself. He'd figured it out when he still worried about her safety in the Maze even after two weeks had passed without fluke.

He'd told Minho, who'd hooted and cheered, "I knew it!"

"Slim it."

"How can I? I was _right_ the entire shuck time, dude! You were always hot for her!"

"It wasn't _al_ ways."

"Don't fight it, shank, it's cool, I totally support it."

"Shut your bloody cake-hole, shuckface. I only told you 'cause I thought you might be able to keep it to yourself."

"Oh, I'll keep it to myself, man, but I'll also do my best to leave you two alone whenever possible. Make your move, she's definitely into you!"

"I can't talk to you anymore." Newt shook his head and looked away, trying his very hardest not to blush.

—

Near the end of Ellie's third week as a Runner, Ben and Stephen finally officially hooked up. Ellie was walking to her sleeping bag when she saw Stephen step towards Ben and kiss him on the lips. Her eyes widened and a huge smile spread across her face as she saw that. The word _triumph_ flew across her mind. _Finally_.

She dropped onto her sleeping bag and pretended not to have seen the moment, but her eyes kept glancing over at the two lovebirds. Something fluttered in her heart, making her smile. Love stories were good. If Gladers felt like they were safe enough for romance, then maybe she was succeeding in getting them to hope for better times.

She went to sleep with the hope in her heart.

—

The next day started normally. Wake up, put on running clothes, pack the backpack, drink enough water, run through the doors with Minho. She had a tune stuck in her head as she ran the passageways with him, and she hummed it to herself between breaths. Minho didn't seem to mind; in fact, he actually paced his footsteps to the beat of the song. Ellie scribbled each turn on her notepad and Minho slashed vines off the walls.

Lunch, a sandwich and a granola bar, and lots of water, and then they were on their feet again, running until Minho checked his watch and said it was time to head back. Ellie was in front on the returning journey as usual, since her immediate memory tended to be better than Minho's.

After a few turns, Ellie saw a Griever.

It was massive, a slug-like body suspended on steampunk, robotic legs that ended in what seemed to be spikes. Around its slimy flesh whirred gears and arms with needles on the tips. One had a three-fingered hand that smashed against the wall and tore away a chunk of vines, and another held sickening yellow lights. The Griever's body pulsated, and goo dripped from its underside. It shifted and turned to her.

She had stopped cold, a scream freezing in her throat. It didn't have any visible eyes.

Minho had seen it too.

"Shuck," he said weakly, and it was the most massive understatement that had ever been said. Acting suddenly, he grabbed her arm and yanked her away. Adrenalin exploded through Ellie's veins as he did so, and then both of them were sprinting down another passageway. Ellie's mind somehow patched together a reroute that would lead her back to the Glade.

Behind them, the Griever shrieked, its voice a scratchy, throaty mess that chilled Ellie to the bone and froze her muscles up. She was aware of every pumping muscle that kept her racing down these halls. The noises behind her told her the Griever was somehow keeping up with them.

Ellie had never seen Minho terrified, so she didn't look at his face as she streaked through the Maze. Every turn she made horrified her, thinking the Griever would catch her then.

After three turns, it did. They were coming up on an intersection when one of the Griever's appendages hooked around her and slammed her against the wall, shoulder first. Ellie screamed. The monster almost immediately let go, but quickly fired its three-clawed hand into her midsection. Her head smacked against the wall behind her. It let her go again and swung its claw into her ribs again.

It roared into her face, and she was sprayed with spit as she was practically deafened.

 _It's trying to stun me,_ the thought flew across Ellie's mind as the creature repeated the operation. She tried to reach for her knife, but the enormous Griever had decided that she was stunned enough, and used its three-clawed hand to grab hold of her leg and yank it out from under her. She hit the ground face-down.

She instantly tried to get up, but the Griever slammed its claw down painfully on her back. Agony abruptly pierced her shoulder from behind. She screamed in pain as she saw the tip of a needle protrude from the front of her left shoulder, pinning her to the ground. The Griever pulled it out sharply from her back, and her blood fell openly onto the ground.

It screamed its throaty shriek, and Ellie looked up through a red haze. Something thick dripped into her eye, but through her other eye, she saw Minho slashing at the Griever with a knife. He was keeping out of its reach, but only barely.

He drove his dagger into what he probably assumed was the monster's neck and twisted, screaming at Ellie, "Stay alive—get to the Glade—I'll lead it away!" He yanked the dagger from its flesh and sprinted away, back down the corridor where they'd come from. The Griever roared and its mechanic legs dug into the rock as it propelled itself after him.

Ellie's vision was blurry, but she staggered upright somehow. She pushed her hand over her bloodied shoulder, trying to stem the blood. _I've been stung_ , she realized. Images of Owen and Hank flashed across her mind as she dragged herself around the corner, heading for the Glade. She made the mistake of looking down. Her shirt had been reduced to bloody rags from the Griever's claw. Her calf had been sliced to ribbons by the same thing. Ellie put her weight on it and almost vomited. Bile rose in her throat and she spit it out, along with something that tasted like blood.

She unfastened her backpack and let it fall behind her, and kept on. Something that felt like death was pressing in on her back.

 _Ellie, what do you think about death?_ Newt's voice echoed in her mind. Step. Step. Keep going. She would _not_ die. She wouldn't.

 _You're my best friend. What happens if you die?_ A hallucination of Ben flickered in her peripheral vision. _What happens to me?_

 _I wish you had let me die,_ Edward quoted Hank, after he'd been stung. Keep going. Turn left up here. Ignore the voices. They're not real. She felt like she was moving in slow motion.

 _We'll need you both when he goes through the Changing_ , Henry yelled at her.

 _He got back in time for the serum._

 _If they manage to make it back before the doors close, the serum saves their life._

 _If not, they go completely mental._

Another turn here. And then straight. Ellie's vision was foggy. She wiped blood out of her eye. She had a terrifying moment, her mental map of the Maze blurring together. Left or right, now?

 _Please. Please, just let it be over._

Left. It was definitely left.

 _She's brave and capable…_

 _She's still too new._

 _No one survives a night in the Maze._

Was this her life flashing before her eyes? Ellie fell to her knees, and forced herself back to her feet, the world tipping and spinning. How much time had passed since Minho had left? Had the Griever gotten him? Had he died trying to give her a chance?

 _We'd never forgive ourselves for letting you go._

 _World in Catastrophe…_

 _Are_ we _the Killzone Experiment Department?_

 _Do you like blood, Greenie?_

Ellie stumbled and caught herself against the wall of the Maze. She looked down and suppressed a whine of pain. She pushed herself back up and kept going, hand tracing the rock next to her.

Minho appeared next to her, lifting her right arm around his neck. "Arm around me, shank, come on. We're almost there." Ellie's feet dragged, even though she was doing her best to pick them up. "You got stung, stupid shuck," Minho said. "What'd I tell you about getting stung?"

If Ellie hadn't been in so much pain, she would've smiled. Maybe even laughed. She couldn't tell.

 _Don't watch._

 _Send me up._

 _Pray to whatever deity you like that it never happens again._

"Hey, look, shankette, there's the Glade. Stay with us a little longer."

A voice called to him. Was that Newt?

"Help us!" Minho's voice was way louder compared to the far-off cries of Newt. She stumbled and became vaguely aware that they were much closer to the doors than she'd thought. Newt's figure appeared in front of her. Where were his crutches? He would hurt himself.

"What the bloody hell happened?" The panic in his voice was practically tangible.

She raised her eyes to look at his face, full of concern and fear, and her arm slipped from around Minho's shoulder and she blacked out.

 _Out over there is the Deadheads. That's where the graveyard is._

 _—_

Newt's stomach clenched in horror the second he saw Minho dragging Ellie out from a corridor in the Maze.

" _Ellie_!" he screamed. Her head lolled in response. _Oh, no, please, God, no_ , he pleaded mentally. This is what he'd always been afraid of.

"Help us!" Minho yelled back, but he was already running towards them, dropping his crutch and ignoring the aching in his leg that caused him to limp. His lungs felt like they were compressing in his chest.

"What the bloody hell happened?" He demanded of Minho, and Ellie looked up at him, her eyes dull and glazed. Before Minho could respond, her legs buckled, and she fell forward. Newt quickly stepped forward and caught her body under her arms. His heart was pumping. He transferred his weight onto his good leg and put one of Ellie's arms around his neck. Minho threw the other around his shoulders.

"Clint!" he screamed, as he and Minho carried Ellie back into the Glade. "Nick!"

It seemed to take them forever to get to him. Alby arrived first, looking in shock at Ellie's body. "Didn't I say she wasn't ready?" he shot at Minho, relieving the Runner of his share of the burden.

"Shut your hole, slinthead," Minho spat back, hands balled into fists. "Either one of us coulda gotten stung!"

Nick and Clint arrived soon after.

"How long has it been since she got stung?" Clint demanded, walking alongside them.

"Seventeen minutes," Minho answered promptly. "I counted every second."

 _Seventeen minutes_ , Newt thought. What had he been doing seventeen minutes ago as Ellie got stung? His mind was frantically spinning, his emotions making it hard to think straight.

"Eighteen. Eighteen minutes," Minho corrected himself.

Jeff held the door of the Homestead open, staring, as they pulled Ellie through. Getting her to the second floor seemed to take an eternity. He and Alby laid her on the bed on which he'd spent the days after he'd jumped, and Clint quickly injected the Grief Serum into her arm. Ellie tensed and arched her back. Blood had already soaked through the front of her running shirt.

"Hold her!" Clint yelled, and Newt clamped down on her arm as she started to thrash. Nick and Alby got her legs, and Clint stabilized her head as she started screaming. Newt's heart felt like it was tearing apart with each shriek. More blood bubbled through her shirt as her back arched violently.

"She's losing blood!" Newt screamed at Clint.

"We can't worry about that now!" the Med-jack replied, but Jeff was there, pushing a cloth over her stomach in an attempt to stem the bleeding. Newt closed his eyes, like it could've blocked out Ellie's pain.

 _She'll be okay, she'll be okay_ , he told himself. _She has to be_.

"What happened to her?" Ben's panicked voice made him open his eyes and look up. Ben was staring at the scene from the door, trying to force his way to her.

"Get him out of here!" yelled Clint, and Alby abandoned her legs to force him out.

"Get off me!" Ben screamed, and pushed back at Alby. "She's my friend, slinthead!"

"Ben!" Newt yelled. "You're not helping!"

"Out!" Alby bellowed, and shoved Ben out, slamming the door. Newt returned his attention to Ellie.

Her fists were clenched, stabbing her fingernails into her palm, and blood was trickling from her hand where there had been no blood before. Newt focused on something he could help, and dug his thumb into her fist.

"Let go, you stubborn…" He forced her hand to open and slid his own hand in the way of her fingers before they could clamp into a fist again. She hadn't stopped screaming.

She didn't stop screaming for two days.

—

Pain exploded through the black abyss. Ellie was hardly aware of her own body, but the agony was everywhere. Heat flowed to her brain. Somewhere far away, someone was screaming, and wouldn't stop. She had never experienced pain like this.

Her head was killing her, but everything felt like it was burning. She couldn't move. What seemed like an eternity later, a painful white light shone into her eyes and rapidly blinked out.

The memories started, welding themselves painfully into her brain.

She was in a car with a man who must have been her father. She couldn't have been five years old.

"Are we almost there?

"Almost, dear."

The memory seemed to fast-forward like a video, and suddenly her little self was toddling onto a playground full of other kids. Some she knew, some she didn't. She pulled herself onto a swing and gripped the chains as hard as she could. She called her father to push her.

He came up behind her and gently pushed her, letting her gain momentum before swinging her higher.

"Look, you're going to fly to the moon!" As he pushed her higher, Ellie could almost believe she could.

The memory fast-forwarded again.

She was climbing to the top of a metal structure in the same playground with another kid. They were racing. He was winning, but only because he was older. She didn't know his name at the time, but, watching her own memories, Ellie identified Newt as a child. He got to the top before she did, but once he was there, he waited for her.

"First one down wins," he said, and they started clambering down. He let her win.

Another fast-forward.

"Papa, who was the blonde boy?"

"The one you were playing with?"

"Yeah."

"Um…I'm not sure I remember his name, actually."

"Aww, okay."

—

The memory cut out. Blinding pain flashed through her again, battering her until the conscious that was left in her mind was begging for another memory to blot it out. An incessant ringing droned in her ears, making her want to scream. It wouldn't go away, and it felt like someone cruel was rubbing salt in her wounds.

 _Wounds_. Her mind rushed towards something important, but the ringing dragged her train of thought back down under.

Suddenly, she was older. She was singing hymns in a church illuminated with rich, warm colors. She didn't understand the words—they could've been in latin, for all she knew—but she knew she loved the tune. People around her sung higher and lower than the main melody that she was accustomed to. Her father towered above her, a warm and comforting presence by her side, and he was singing his heart out. Next to her was her best friend, a girl with light brown hair named Katie.

Katie was playing with her hair, looking down at her shadow on the ground and making hand puppets. Ellie knew her little self would've loved to join in, but her father would never have tolerated it.

"Here's a haystack," Katie murmured as she used her hands as shadow puppets. "Here's a llama, here's a horse, that's a doggie…"

—

A spree of images flashed past her eyes, covering up the church. She was eating dinner at a white table, surrounded by family whose faces were blurry. Scents wafted into her nose. Then, she was exploring her backyard, picking flowers and showing them to her father.

She was watching her father drink some amber liquid with another woman, as she hid behind the stairs so they wouldn't know she was out of bed. She remembered wondering who the strange woman was, and why she was in the house.

Later, the same woman offered her a coloring book, and they sat inside near the fire coloring for hours. The woman kept laughing at things Ellie said, even if Ellie didn't think they were funny. She started staying in their house more and more. She began to teach Ellie how to play a guitar fit for her small size.

She was outside, running, playing tag with her father, when she tripped and skinned her knee badly. Her father spent five minutes putting band-aids on it and comforting her.

Then, an image of the blonde boy from the playground riding a bike down the street transitioned her to the next memory.

Years after, she, her father, and the woman (whose name was Marie) were sitting at a table, laughing at something that had happened to Ellie at school. Ellie had become familiar with Marie, and she was just like family now. A dog barked and whined loudly outside, and Marie stood.

"I'll go check on him," she said, and jogged out to the back.

"Is he barking at the mailman?" Ellie asked.

"Could be," her father said, and gestured to her greens on her plate. "Eat your vegetables, dear."

"They taste gross."

"But they're good for you."

The lights popped and went out, suddenly enough so that Ellie cried out. The air-conditioning wound down. Light from outside still lit up the room. Outside, Marie screamed. Ellie's father was up in a second, running to the door. Ellie slid off her chair, thinking she could escape her veggies, and followed. The back door opened and she saw Marie stumble in, painful-looking burns covering every inch of her visible skin.

"Marie, what happened?" her father demanded.

"I—I don't know, the temperature, it just skyrocketed!"

It was getting hot in the house. Ellie's father opened the refrigerator and retrieved every ice-pack to put them on Marie. She gasped as the ice touched her arms and face.

—

Darkness consumed the memory, and Ellie almost woke up. She became aware of a numbness in her whole body. Her mind was still too far away to feel anything except that her head was pounding.

"How is she?"

"Not awake yet."

"Let me watch her."

The voices silenced, and Ellie drifted off again into her fevered memory-dreams.

—

She was ten, sitting in front of an office desk looking at a middle-aged blonde woman, who was telling her about what she had signed up for.

"Your education will continue with this program, and you'll be housed among other children your age. We like to think of this facility as a research center and not a prison. You especially are going to help a lot of people. Your part in our experiments will be explained to you soon. Your guardians have signed their approval of this, and all we need is your signature."

Ellie hardly even looked at the words on the page as she signed. The action was automatic. She wasn't thinking clearly, and besides, her father had told her that she'd be better off here. She slid the paper back across the tabletop to the woman, who smiled and held out her hand to shake.

"Welcome to WICKED…" the woman said, as Ellie took her hand. " _Ellie_."

The memory was interrupted by flickering faces, boys _and_ girls, that felt familiar. All of them were looking at her. Some smiled, most kept to themselves. The image of an operation table joined them, and a light above her shone down.

—

 _"Hi, I'm Ellie."_

 _"I'm Newt. Nice to meet you."_

A commons room with comfortable white couches was furnished with a television screen. White halls branched out of it. Ellie thought the place felt like a prison. In another room, her favorite music filled the hall with life. She and other girls, her friends, danced to it.

She was in a room, looking at a different screen, that showed an image of the blonde boy, whose name was Newt now. He was climbing the walls.

He jumped off, and her dream-self screamed. The memory glitched forward, and she was in an observation room lit by blue glowing screens.

" _Send me up!"_

With that, Ellie fell into a blissful void of unconsciousness for a merciful amount of time.

—

Light illuminated her eyelids, waking her up. At first, she couldn't muster the strength to open her eyes. So, instead, she waited and listened. She could hear the Homestead creaking around her—she was lying on a mattress. Probably the same one Owen had lain on. There was a dip in it to the left of her.

She opened her eyes, finally, and the first thing she saw was Newt.

He was sitting on the mattress next to her, staring at the wall with an empty, defeated expression. The whole room was illuminated in a soft golden light, and it made him look practically like a god. Ellie shifted, and he looked at her. Pure relief lit his eyes up, and for once, Ellie was too achy to bother repressing her fluttering heart.

"Hey, Salamander," she croaked, tilting her head to look at him more directly.

"Figured you'd be waking up soon," he said. There were dark circles under his eyes.

"Yeah, how's that?" She still felt groggy.

"You stopped bloody _screamin_ ' last night." His expression darkened. "How could you do that to us, you stupid shuckface? You almost _died!_ "

Ellie smiled, because that was exactly what she would've expected him to say, and that made her happier than it should've. "Nice to see you, too, Newt."

He sucked in a breath and ran a hand through his hair, like he was pulling it out. "Bloody hell, Ellie."

"Bloody," Ellie chuckled feebly, checking the blood-soaked bandages around her torso. "It's funny 'cause it's true."

"How can you make jokes right now?"

Ellie tried to sit up but her arms failed her, so she flopped back down onto the bed. "Well, _you're_ not going to, are you?" She rubbed her eyes with a hand, feeling like she'd come out of a coma. "How long was I unconscious?"

"Two and a half days. And _I_ hardly slept three hours of it."

"Shuck," Ellie groaned, massaging her forehead and finding a scab close to her hairline. Taking her hand away and inspecting it, she seemed to have dug into her own palm with her fingernails. Those cuts were scabbing over, too. "You don't need to lose any more sleep, mate. You can't afford to."

"Yeah, and you missed the buggin' initiation ceremony of the new Greenbean yesterday, too," Newt said, purposefully ignoring her comment. "Went a hell of a lot bumpier than usual, too, 'specially with you screamin' bloody murder up here."

"Great," Ellie groaned sarcastically. "It gets better. What's the kid's name?"

"Finn."

"Well, that's… _Finn-omenal_."

Newt shook his head and stood up, pacing across to the far side of the room, next to a window. He crossed his arms and turned back to her. Ellie frowned. "What happened to your crutches?"

"I can walk without them now. Got a hell of a limp, though."

She grunted and rolled onto her side and pushed herself into a sitting position, grunting at the aching in her stomach.

"Take it easy, shank, you got thoroughly shucked by that Griever."

"Thanks." Ellie took the time to look down at her body for the first time. She was still wearing the sports bra that she'd worn the day the Griever got her, but her running shirt had been removed, and instead her stomach was mostly covered in bandages. Gingerly touching the area around them revealed that the cuts the monster had inflicted had not totally healed. "Awww," she groaned. "I bet I look like crap."

(Newt couldn't disagree more) Newt sniffed and smiled. "Not _too_ bad." Ellie smirked. "Last night, though, you looked bloody awful then. Green veins and everything all across your skin."

Ellie's left leg was bandaged, too, but the pain there was not as bad. Suddenly, looking down at her leg, she was jolted back to the memory-dream she'd had. She'd scraped her knee once with her father near.

"Newt," she said. "Did you know the Changing gives you back your memories?"

"What?" he exclaimed, an intense interest sparking in his face. "No. How—what—what do you remember?"

Ellie shook her head and swung her legs off the bed to stand up. "It's fading. I remember my dad…I remember my step-mom, I think. I remember the power went out in our house once, and then I remember signing up for some program. I remember it was a kind of boarding school, I think. I remember…" Ellie frowned, staring down at the bed, and then looked at Newt. "I remember _you_."

His eyebrows twitched. "Me?"

"Yep. You. You were really cute as a kid."

He let out a snort of a laugh, and shook his head.

"No, I'm serious," Ellie said in a teasing way.

"Hah, hah. Please tell me we weren't siblings."

Ellie considered it, grasping at the memories and images that were already blurring. "No," she said with certainty. "We're not siblings." She grinned, and teased him to cover up her feelings. "But just why would _that_ be an issue, Salamander?"

In response, Newt stepped closer to her, closer than they'd ever gotten, and kissed her on the lips.

Ellie's heart _exploded_.

—

The room of scientists in WICKED began to applaud and cheer. Nothing over the top, of course.

—

The whole world dissipated around them, and the only thing in existence that mattered was this moment. Her lips and his. The world was spinning around them. Her senses were all screwed up—the aching she'd felt a moment before seemed to have disappeared. She wasn't even sure how she was still standing. Her chest felt like it was expanding, and if she'd thought she'd had butterflies in her stomach before, they were nothing compared to this.

When he pulled back, her sense of feeling came rushing in again, and tingling spread across her skin from her waist, where she realized Newt's hand was.

"That's why," he said softly.

"Oh," Ellie tried to say, but it came out higher and weaker than she thought. She cleared her throat. "That's a good reason."

Newt laughed and let his hand slip away from her waist, but didn't step away. Ellie reached forward and slipped her hands into his, even though she had to twist her arms to do so. She'd never seen his eyes shine so brightly.

"Clint and Minho will probably want to know you're awake," he said, with the cutest grin Ellie had ever seen on him.

"Yeah, probably," Ellie responded, considering whether to kiss him again.

She did, and let go of his hands to throw her arms around his neck. She was so happy she felt like she could've melted, and her heart felt like it was floating. Energy surged through her nerves, and she felt like she could've taken on a hundred Grievers at that moment. Newt hugged her around her waist and pulled her closer. This kiss lasted longer than the first, and when they pulled away, both were smiling.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Newt actually thought the Glade might not be so bad.

Ellie let her arms slip from around his neck, letting one of her hands linger on his chest for just a second. She thought for an instant that she could feel his heartbeat before she forcefully reminded herself not to be weird, and dropped it to her side.

 _Oh god oh god oh god what am I why did I do this_

"Minho and Clint," she said aloud, to remind both of them. Newt looked down and stepped back, grinning.

"I'll go get 'em. Minho was really worried about you. Ben, too."

"Oh, my God, Minho's okay, right? How'd he get away from the Griever?"

"Evasive maneuvers, as he puts it. Ask him all about it yourself, now lie down. You might be awake, but you're still healing."

Ellie nodded and sat, her stomach aching and sending stabs of pain through her body. "Yep," she grunted. "Yep. Still healing. Got it." Newt helped her lie down.

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Bit late, there, Salamander."

Newt rolled his eyes and exited the room, his footsteps staggered by the prominent limp he'd developed. At least he was off his crutches.

Ellie found herself smiling ridiculously, even after he had gone. Her heart was still fluttering, which kind of made her feel vulnerable, in a way. She covered her stomach with her hands as if she could feel the happiness writhing inside her. She hummed the happiest tune she could think of, and the words presented themselves in her mind, so she sang. She used her hands to drum on the bed, and pretended to dance, even while lying on the bed.

A minute or so later, she heard the door on the first floor of the Homestead bang open, and footsteps raced loudly up the stairs. Seconds later, Ben burst through the door of her room, eyes alight. Stephen followed him closely, grinning widely.

"Ellie!" he yelled, and Ellie sat up in her bed as Ben rushed her and gave her a huge hug. "I WAS SO WORRIED!"

"Yeah, sorry, Benny," she apologized, hugging back, and recalling his original freak-out when she'd told him she was to be a Runner. She expected him to be like Newt, to berate her for getting stung, but he didn't.

"Nice to see you awake, shankette," Stephen said, giving her a fist bump behind Ben's back as she smirked at the nickname.

"Newt says you remember stuff from before," he said, words rushing excitedly out of his mouth. He stepped back and sat beside her on the bed. Stephen came around and sat on the other side.

"Yeah," she said. "A lot was about my father, but later on there was a bunch of jumbled images from some boarding school or something. And actually, I knew Newt before. Like, as a kid."

"What?" Ben and Stephen chorused, their eyes widening.

"No way," said Ben. "What was he like?"

"Can't remember much, just that he let me beat him in a race to the bottom of the playground."

"What a gentleman!" exclaimed Stephen, laughing.

"He was five."

"Gentlechild," Ben corrected, and the three of them giggled.

"I'm sorry," Ellie chuckled. "I'm just picturing little mini-Newt in a suit or something."

"And a dapper monocle," Stephen added, and Ellie sputtered a laugh, picturing it.

Clint and Jeff came in, and a relieved smile spread across Clint's face.

"Oh, thank God," he said. "I'm not total crap at Med-jacking."

" _Did someone say_ Jack?" demanded a voice from down the hall, and Jack, a Slopper, pranced by the door for comedic purposes, and then laughed and left. Everyone else sputtered with surprised laughter.

"More like Med-jacked-UP," Ellie said to Clint, leaning her head back as she said it for emphasis.

At that, Minho's head appeared suddenly around the edge of the door, glaring comically at her. "Was that a pun," he said as greeting.

"No, Minho," Newt's voice said sarcastically from further away down the hall. "Definitely _not_ a pun."

"God forbid _Ellie_ to tell a _pun_ ," Stephen added, and Ben gave him a grin as Minho and Newt entered the room, followed by Fred, who actually had a smile on his face. Clint came over to check Ellie's bandages.

"Sorry we had to take your shirt off. We had to see how badly you were shucked up," he said.

"Nah, don't worry, it's fine. I don't care."

Her friends positioned themselves to lounge around the room, just to hang out with her, since apparently it was almost dinnertime anyway, and they were off work. Newt sat next to her on the bed, closer than either Ben or Stephen. Gally was the next person to stick his head in.

"SHE LIVES!" he yelled, an enormous smile spreading across his face, and the other Builders showed up behind him, cheering, and crowded in as well.

"Yeah, the whole squad!" Minho said approvingly, clapping along.

"The whole squad, minus Stan," Gally corrected.

"Where'd that shank go, then?" Newt asked.

"Takin' care of our newest Greenie," Gally replied.

"So apparently the Changing gives some memories back," Ben updated everyone loudly, interrupting to get their attention.

Of those who hadn't known already, even Fred looked surprised.

"Yeah, and guess which shank was _really_ cute as a kid," Ellie said.

"Pfff, it's me," Minho said, comically confident. "Look at this face."

"You wish," Newt said, crossing his arms.

Ellie grinned, leaned her shoulder into his, and gestured at him with her head. "This guy."

"You knew each other?!" demanded Gally.

"Well, not really," Ellie said. "I think we just lived near each other."

"Makes sense," Fred muttered to himself, quietly judging everyone else for being so surprised.

"That's really cool—means we might all have something in common," Frankie said. "Like, we all lived together or in an area for a while, or something."

"I think we all went to a boarding school together," Ellie said.

"Hold on," Fred spoke up. "Why hasn't anyone else who's been stung spoken up about this?"

"I dunno," Minho said. "I think Hank's just a slinthead, but I got nothin' for the rest of them."

"There's gotta be some reason, right?" Newt said.

"We'll ask them later," Clint said. "Someone go get Ellie some food."

On cue, Ellie's stomach rumbled loudly.

"I'll do it," said Jeff readily, and left quickly. There were a few seconds of silence where the group just looked around at each other fondly.

"So," Ellie prompted cheerfully. "Who's up for _finally_ convincing Nick to hold a party?"

Every hand in the room shot up instantly, so they spent the rest of the fading day plotting how to best convince the Gladers' leader to plan them a party, taking a break in their scheming only for all of them to retrieve their dinner and bring it back to the room. When they did so, Ben lingered and whispered into Ellie's ear, "Are you and Newt together?"

Ellie looked at him and nodded, her eyes smiling.

Ben did a fist-pump and murmured, "Finally!" before patting her on the back and catching up to the rest for their take-out dinner, which was the most delicious thing Ellie had ever tasted. During the meal with her friends, she noticed Stephen and Ben occasionally feeding each other pieces of food, and laughing as they got sauce all around their mouths, which she decided was the cutest thing ever.

Their ending plot was to spread the word that everyone needed to beg Nick for a party. Strength in numbers and all that.

"Everyone knows Ellie's the hope sign, right," Frankie said, "So we should tell them it's a party to bring hope, and life, and happiness."

"Would you like some _wine_ with that _cheese_?" Stephen muttered teasingly.

"It's bringing _hope,_ and _life,_ " Minho mocked a pretentious voice, and chortled pompously to drive the joke home. "And _happiness._ Look at how fancy we are."

"Shut up," Frankie said, crossing his arms, pouting.

Alex shoved him playfully. "Come on, Frankfurt, you can't say you didn't expect us to."

"Well!" Gally said, clapping his hands once. "We got our plan—shouldn't we start right now?"

"Shuck yeah," Minho agreed. "Dude's right—we've probably bothered El enough." Gally looked at him in surprise—he couldn't remember a time when Minho had agreed with him. "Let's go have ourselves a shuckin' party!"

"Good that," a few people chorused (Ellie noted incredulously that Fred had joined them) and everyone began to stand up to leave.

"Glad you're feeling better," Ben said aside as a good-bye as he passed her on his way to the door.

"Thanks, Benny," Ellie smiled. Ben caught the eye of Newt, who hadn't stood, and threw him a grin and a thumbs up. Ellie looked, and Newt had turned his face away, probably hiding a smirk of a smile.

After everyone had gone except Ellie and Newt, he transferred to a chair that had been occupied by Ben. "I'm actually excited about this party," he said, almost incredulously. "I can't remember being this excited about anything, ever."

"Yeah, me neither," Ellie agreed. She thought for a second, and then laughed. "Wow, that's really depressing when you think about it."

"It is, isn't it," Newt said, leaning back in his chair. "This might make the Glade not actually so bad after all."

"Oh yeah," Ellie scoffed with a smile. "We could just stay here forever, have the time of our lives. Putting the 'Glad' in 'Glade.'"

"Sure hope not."

Ellie grinned and shook her head. "Not seriously." Still smiling, her mind drifted a second and her eyes wandered to her bandaged leg.

With a jolt, she was shocked back into a memory that consumed her vision for a second. Newt climbed the vines on the side of the Maze. She remembered horror exploding in her chest as she watched the terrible scene.

 _"No!"_ she'd screamed, and jumped up at the screen as if he could've heard her. Her heart had broken as he fell.

Her eyes cleared, and she was still in the safety of the Homestead. She inhaled sharply as she returned to the present. _They told me he'd been running from a Griever._ Her smile had dropped quickly, and Newt noticed instantly.

"What?" he asked, leaning forward in concern.

The memory was becoming more vivid in Ellie's mind, overshadowing her happy childhood with her father. She flashed back to the first time she'd seen him, that deep, dark sadness surrounding him. _No, oh no, oh no._

"Newt," she started, scared to ask. She met his eyes. "You—Your leg…You weren't running from a Griever, were you?"

Newt's concerned expression fell into one of dark, sad realization. His eyes became hooded and haunted, his shoulders falling just the slightest bit. He held eye contact, his eyes seeming to say, _No, I didn't mean for you to know._ He swallowed and bit his lip when he moved his eyes away. He didn't look back for quite some time.

"Were you trying to—to—" Ellie couldn't finish it, but she saw Newt's head move just the slightest bit in a nod. Her lungs felt suddenly compressed, her heart aching for him. _Then—his nightmares. All those times he didn't sleep at night—_

"How'd you figure it out?" Newt asked with an empty voice. "Alby and I were the only ones who knew." He looked up. "Did he—"

"No," Ellie interrupted, shaking her head. A new, almost even worse realization had come to her. She'd been watching the screen. She'd yelled at someone to send her up. "No, I—" She looked at him. "I was—there was a beetle blade when you jumped. It was watching, _I_ was watching, Newt, I'm—I'm one of them, they were right, I _am_ a spy for WICKED, oh my God, oh my God—" Ellie pressed her hands to her face in shame and horror, tears soaking her eyes, for Newt, and what she must have done to him.

Newt had straightened up, coming alert at her words. "Ellie, slow down. You're not making sense."

For a few seconds, Ellie couldn't speak, and just hid behind her hands.

"Talk to me. What happened?"

She slowed her breathing and did her best not to stutter.

"I told you I remembered stuff from—from before. What I remember is watching…a screen, and you were climbing the vines, and I couldn't do it, I couldn't take it, I couldn't watch you _suffer_ , because we knew each other from before, but you were on the screen, and I was just watching it like some kind of reality show, and then I told someone to send me up, and now I'm _here!_ Newt, I'm one of them, it's the only thing that makes sense, and it's my fault you're here, it's got to be, oh my God, I'm so sorry—"

Newt stood up and sat next to her on the bed, pulling her into a hug. "First of all," he said, his voice firm, "There's no _way_ it's your fault we're all here, because I bloody _know_ you, and you would never do that. And, because if it _were_ your fault we're here, _you_ wouldn't bloody be here, would ya? Someone else sent us all here, 'right? I _refuse_ to believe you're a bloody spy for shucking WICKED, because you're _not._ And second of all, maybe I did jump off the shuck walls, and maybe I didn't expect to come out of it, but _you're_ here now, and every time you've made me smile in the past four months, it's been genuine. So don't you go bloody self-deprecating yourself on some tiny piece of evidence you _think_ you can remember out of a huge story neither of us can bloody remember. Good that, you bloody shank?"

 _I don't believe you, I don't believe you,_ Ellie thought, shaking her head stubbornly, even though his words had released some of the shame in her heart. Maybe she hadn't been responsible? She couldn't remember _feeling_ responsible.

"Hey," Newt prompted insistently. "Shank. Look at me." He pulled away and forced her to look him in the eyes. "What I did was not your doing. Don't take the blame for something you didn't do. Good that?"

"Good that, I guess," she muttered, pulling back and massaging her eyes to stop the tears from coming. Newt sat quietly, waiting for her to look at him again so he could tell if she was really convinced.

She wasn't, but she switched the subject on him before he could reason with her again. "Okay, well if you _ever_ think of doing anything like _that_ again, come to me, _please_. Don't fake smiles for me. I want to know, because I'll be there to help."

Newt looked down, feeling a hundred roiling emotions swirling underneath his skin. He tried at a smile, but it dropped from his face quickly. He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded.

"Good," Ellie said.

"Properly cheerful, aren't we," Newt said, offering a huff of laughter to the unwilling atmosphere of the room.

Ellie gave a hesitant grin even while wiping a remnant tear off her cheek. "Well, at least we got it off our chests, right?"

"Yeah," Newt said. An impossible laugh somehow came out of his lips. "I guess that was what people call an emotional roller-coaster."

"Only bloody roller-coasters we'll be getting any time soon," Ellie added, and hummed a tune from some roller-coaster themed love song. She frowned, an amusing thought coming to her. "Think the Creators would send up a guitar up for the party?"

Newt looked at her curiously. "You can play guitar?"

Ellie shrugged. "I mean, I think so."

"That's cool."

"Yeah, look at me, look at how cool I am."

They spent another hour just sitting and talking, Newt letting his once-broken leg dangle off the edge of the bed casually. Eventually, it seemed that the four months of inconsistent, nightmare-ridden sleep that had followed his fall finally caught up to him. His head sank onto Ellie's shoulder, and even though she was still awake, she stayed stock still and let him stay asleep until her mind was consumed by dreams, too.

She had a lovely dream in which it was her birthday. She didn't know where she was, but all around her were her friends, congratulating her on her age. She recognized Newt first, then Ben, then Stephen, Minho, Fred, Justin the Track-hoe (for some reason) and a bunch of other faceless boys and girls who she didn't know the names of. Some guy was called Thomas, and apparently he got along quite well with Ellie's dream-self. Someone had brought a bouquet of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate cupcakes that looked like flowers. Vibrant signs colored in crayons or sharpies were up on the walls.

Everyone began to sing happy birthday to her, loudly and obnoxiously, and in her dream, Ellie wasn't even embarrassed. Her friends around her finished the song and began to applaud and cheer as she picked up the first cupcake, and then everyone descended on the arrangement, scrambling to get the flavor they desired. Ellie's dream-self laughed and proclaimed as a joke that there could only be one.

Ellie's mind sank willingly into the happy dream that she _really_ hoped was a real memory.

(It was.)

—

Newt slept well for the first time in a very, very long time. In fact, he very nearly overslept the usual Glader wake-up call, and managed to rouse himself suddenly when he realized with embarrassment that he had fallen asleep on Ellie's shoulder. He almost began to apologize when he realized that she was still sleeping, her face peaceful and practically flawless, apart from the barest remains of green veins that still lingered on her neck and the scab on her forehead.

Carefully he shifted off the bed and stood up, stretching. He may have slept well, but the position he'd slept in had left him stiff. He cracked his neck and stretched his back. He'd never felt so refreshed.

Ellie's eyes fluttered open and quickly focused on him as she sighed a waking breath.

"Aww, I almost got away with it," Newt complained jokingly.

"Yep," Ellie was stretching, too, before she realized she still had scars from the Griever on her stomach. "Ow. How'd you sleep, Salamander?"

"Actually had a night of good sleep for once."

"Wait—you…?—Oh my God, somebody check the temperature in Hell."

Newt laughed, and Ellie swung her legs off the bed.

"Woah, where're you going, shankette?"

"To go to the bathroom, Salamander, I've been unconscious for three days _._ "

"You're alright, though?"

Ellie laughed scornfully. "I might be useless, mate, but I'm not _that_ useless. Don't worry, I can take care of myself." She shrugged, considering the fact that she'd just spent three days unconscious because she got herself stung. "You know. Mostly."

Newt still worried about her, but he just snorted and said, "Good that. See you at breakfast, then."

He left the Homestead to claim the usual picnic table and ran into Minho, who saw him instantly as he was walking to his Door. He saw Newt leave the Homestead and jumped _right_ to conclusions, as usual.

"Dude!" the Runner exclaimed. "Did you _sleep_ with her?"

"What?" Newt demanded, shocked. "No!"

Minho spread his arms to disarm Newt's aggression. "Woah—not like _that_ , shuckface! Get your mind out of the gutter, Salamander."

"You're the one who said it," Newt said. "And _don't_ call me Salamander."

"Sorry, sorry," Minho raised his hands in surrender. "Didn't mean to use your girlfriend's nickname for you." He dropped his hands and grinned knowingly at Newt. "She _is_ your girlfriend, isn't she? You guys finally confessed your undying love for each other, right?" He snorted amusedly, and started towards his Door again, sparing Newt from having to come up with a comeback. Newt shook his head fondly and looked around at the Glade as if through new eyes. He'd become so familiar with hating it for a year that now that everything seemed less bloody horrible, it felt like he was just waking up there again.

 _Putting the 'Glad' in 'Glade,' Ellie had said._

He smiled to himself.

—

When Ellie came out into the Glade from the Homestead (wearing a new shirt that wasn't stained with blood or sliced to pieces), there was a general scattering of applause from all of her Glader friends. She was swiftly surrounded by Ben, Stephen, and all her Builder buddies. Nick was at her side for a split second giving her a pat on the back. She even saw the faces of Billy, Frypan, and Jack through everyone. When Gladers who hadn't noticed her return heard the cheering, they started clapping, too, just because it was what everyone else was doing and it felt like the right thing to do.

"Welcome back!" someone said.

"Not a true Runner until you've been stung!"

"Welcome back to the land of free, home of the brave," someone joked sarcastically—probably Stephen. He should've known better. The slightest thing could trigger Ellie's song impulse—more than once had someone said something completely normal, and she'd just burst into song without warning.

"Shut up, you guys," Ellie said, blushing. "I was awake yesterday, too."

Someone slipped their hand into hers, and when she looked, Newt grinned at her. He squeezed gently before letting go. If nothing else about the situation had made her smile, that would've done the job on its own.

"Let 'er meet the new Greenbean!" Stan yelled from somewhere, and a few people backed off—enough to let an unfamiliar face through. The kid was short and lean—probably would make a good Runner. He already seemed well-adjusted to the Glade life, for having only been there for three days or so.

"Finn, I assume," Ellie said, grinning, over the still ongoing chatter of the Gladers.

"Yep," he said, giving a lopsided grin that made him look like the biggest bloody prankster Ellie could imagine. "Guess you're Ellie, then. The Puntastic one, according to Stan?"

"Pffffff," Ellie scoffed. "Who, me? _Puns_? I never!" She leaned closer to him with a grin. "You're lucky, kid—If I have my way, our esteemed leader might let us throw a party before you've Finn-ished your first month."

She got more groans from that than she had expected—more Gladers were listening than she'd thought. Finn laughed, and she smiled.

The second that Ben got there, Ellie hooked her arm around her best friend's shoulder and sought out Nick's eyes in the crowd.

"Hey Nickname!" she yelled over the hubbub, which quieted slightly when she called out. "Ready for that party just yet?"

Nick folded his arms and rolled his eyes as everyone erupted into cheering.


	6. The Eye of the Hurricane

**A/N: Be prepared for primarily fluff and happy things because this is the last time you'll be getting them. You have been warned. —the Author**

* * *

The party took a week to prepare. Ellie wished she could do more, but all she could do was watch and supervise as other, not-injured Gladers set up a bonfire and pushed picnic tables into a circle, among other things. Nick was thoroughly displeased all week, but with the support of literally ever other Glader (even Alby), it seemed Ellie had successfully temporarily overthrown his rule.

Frypan was preparing a feast for them, or so he claimed. He had taken note over the past year of which meals the Gladers liked best, and he intended to make all of them. The Builders spent half a day building up a large bonfire they planned to light on the night of the party. The Bricknicks threw together makeshift games and challenges like limbo and musical chairs. The energy of the Glade had increased drastically.

Gladers speculated what kind of games they would play at the party. People kept walking up to Nick with suggestions for things to do specifically to annoy him. It might have just been Ellie's imagination, but she could've sworn Nick was getting more excited about the idea. She saw him grinning slightly after suggestions came to him, and he began to engage her more with the planning for the party—if there was anyone in the Glade who excelled at planning, it was Nick.

Ellie sent a shopping list down the Box one evening for a guitar, some paint, cake mix, and some party hats.

"There's no way the Creators are gonna send up all that," Nick told her pessimistically.

"We asked for a TV once, but no luck," Minho added.

"Might as well give it a shot, though," Ellie replied. "Who knows, maybe we'll get to face paint!"

"Hah."

Ellie figured they only had a chance of getting the paint. No way were the Creators going to go out of their way to send them a guitar or cake mix. _Cake mix_? What had she been thinking? She looked forward to the paint, though.

Still, when the Box came back up the day before the party, she eagerly helped Alby, Fred, and Newt open it.

Alby actually grinned when he saw its contents.

"No way," he said incredulously.

In the center of the usual supplies the Box came up with was a guitar. On top of it lay a string of containers of the whole rainbow of face paint. Seeing it brought up what could've been a fuzzy memory of painting a picture with the same kind of container of paint next to her.

"Bloody hell," Newt said next to her, a grin on his face.

—

Dr. Ava Paige folded her arms as Thomas and Teresa grinned guiltily up at the screen in front of them. They were hunched over their desk, with the formidable presence of their instructor looming behind them.

"This was unauthorized. I am very disappointed with you two."

"It's hers, _anyway_. And she asked for it," Teresa reasoned, still not looking up at their superior.

Thomas glanced over at her, about a million percent certain that her protests would amount to nothing. They'd deliberately disobeyed—there was no getting out of this. He considered telling her telepathically—but there was no point. WICKED could monitor their telepathy.

"Ellie's supposed to be the expert at bringing hope, anyway," Teresa persisted, when her previous statement was met with icy silence, which, from Dr. Paige, meant bad things. "She says—she _said_ —music will help ingrain it in their subconscious."

"The faster the better, I suppose," Dr. Paige muttered grudgingly. Thomas and Teresa exchanged a sad look, both understanding exactly what Dr. Paige was referencing. A knot of nervousness unraveled in each of their stomachs, though, hoping she had forgiven their mini-mutiny.

No such luck.

"Janson!" Dr. Paige barked suddenly. Thomas and Teresa flinched. "I'm sure you'll think of a suitable punishment for this disrespect. And _you_ two. Don't disobey me again."

—

"TRIUMPH!" Ellie yelled as Alby handed up the cargo. She cheered and hugged Newt in happiness. He hugged back warmly but briefly before demanding her to play something on it. Ellie picked up the guitar and the paint, handing the paint off to Fred, who smiled softly as he looked at it. Not for the first time, Ellie wondered what went on in his head.

Noticing her looking at him, Fred looked at her, still smiling, and explained, "I'm going to paint a picture. It'd be cool to have some decoration in the Homestead—we could make it look like we were in a horror movie. It could be a black-and-white kind of thing."

"That would actually be amazing," Alby agreed (to Ellie's surprise) and Fred smiled the most genuine smile Ellie had ever seen on him. It was infectious.

Meanwhile, Ellie was still under instruction to play a song on the guitar, so she and Newt sat on the picnic table and rested her feet on the bench. She strummed experimentally, trying out the fingerings on the neck of the instrument. After a few tries, she strummed a chord that triggered her memory.

She began to strum the strings and constructed a tune and rhythm that she had learned long ago. She tapped her foot to the beat, and envisioned other instruments coming in at the right time. Then she began to sing a cheerful-sounding love song. She got the vaguest idea that it was supposed to be a guy singing to a girl, but hey, who cared?

 _"Hey, baby, won't you look my way—I could be your new addiction. Hey, baby, what'cha gotta say—all you're giving me is fiction."_

Her song and the guitar attracted the attention of most other Gladers as they worked. It was a good dancing song, so she spotted some of the guys jamming out and swaying to the beat as they worked. Some of her Builder friends ( _Ben. Stephen_. I'm looking at you.) noticed and yelled out an obnoxious cheer, making Ellie smile.

Someone she couldn't see screamed "They gave us a guitar?!" probably louder than they meant to, and there was a scattering of laughs from everyone else.

 _"I'm a sorry sucker, and this happens all the time…But I find out that everybody talks, everybody talks, everybody talks—_

 _"It started with a whisper, and that was when I kissed_ her _. And then she made my lips_ hurt _! I can hear the chit_ chat _, take me to your love_ shack _—Mama's always gotta back_ track _, when everybody talks_ back."

Next to her, Newt was swaying back and forth to the beat, smiling widely and drumming along to the song. Ellie laughed and almost broke her song, but quickly jumped back into the lyrics before the next verse began.

—

As she finished her song, hoots and cheers came from all corners of the Glade that had heard her. Ellie patted the guitar happily, drinking in a feeling she imagined was similar to what rockstars felt.

"How's that, Salamander? Good enough example for you?"

"Bloody brilliant," Newt said. "Excellent choice of song."

Ellie beamed, and rested the guitar against the table for later. She had instructions from the Keeper of Runners as for what to do while she was off running duty.

Everyone else were still doing their jobs—Nick had proclaimed that the day of the party would be an off day, and the day after, everyone could get a late start. Every other day, he'd said, they'd be expected to work as normal. Ellie still couldn't run well, obviously, so Minho had instructed her to rest or study the maps in the Map Room.

After splitting from Newt and Fred, who had their own jobs to do, she stared at the papers until she felt like her eyes were going to start to bleed, but as usual, the answers eluded her. Her mood dropped into a state of unhappy stress.

 _Hopeless._ Ellie dragged her hand through her long hair, fingering the scar at her hairline as had become habit over the last week. Looking at the maps was a very depressing pass-time. She was clever, she thought, but not this clever. This required book-smarts and riddle-solving skills, which evidently she didn't have. How could she tell everyone she was a hope sign for a way out if she couldn't even tell where to _start_?

It had been four months and almost a week since she'd shown up in the Glade—meaning some of the Gladers had been there for over a year. Still no solution.

Gally and Newt brought her a snack after a while, a welcome distraction from the papers in front of her.

"Here," Newt said, throwing an apple and a wedge of cheese at her. "Got you some food. To distract you from these bloody things. Frustrating, aren't they?"

"So beyond frustrating. Wish I back in the Maze. Running is infinitely preferable to studying."

"Great," Gally said. "Good thing we got you the meal of kings to cheer you up."

Ellie smirked and bit into her apple. "Good thing, too—I was _running_ on fumes." She pointed finger guns at Newt, eagerly waiting for his reaction. He just shook his head, hiding a grin.

"What'cha workin' on?" Gally sat beside her to examine the maps.

"Studying these shuck things. Maybe they've got a pattern or correlation or code or something in them."

"If they have, we haven't found it," Newt added, sitting on her other side.

"Thing is," Ellie told Gally, for educational purposes. "Sometimes they repeat. They just don't repeat in any noticeable pattern, that I can see. Or, you know, that anyone has been able to see. But, you know. I hoped I could."

"Well," Gally put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "At least if we have to stay then it won't be so bad. You're making things look better—a _party_ was a great idea."

" 'E's right," Newt agreed, leaning his shoulder into hers in agreement. "So don't beat yourself up too bad over the maps."

"Guess you're right," Ellie said. She tapped her stomach, which was still bandaged. "I think the Grievers got the whole beating up thing covered on their own."

"Yeah," Newt laughed. "Okay, Ellie."

—

The party was the next day.

Nick let everyone sleep late, and then everyone had the day off before the party started at dinner time. At first, no one knew what to do with a day off, but then Minho saved the day.

"What do we do on a day off?" Finn asked uncertainly, sitting on the picnic table with his feet on the bench.

"Dunno—we never have days off," Stan said. "Least—never since I've been here."

Minho was thinking. Suddenly, his arm shot out and he gave Frankie a quick tap on the shoulder. "TAG, YOU'RE IT," he bellowed, and rocketed away across the Glade, yelling, "I AM TEN YEARS OLD."

Everyone stood, stunned, for a second, before the others sprinted away, too. Ellie almost suffocated with laughter, falling off her bench. It made her stomach hurt a lot worse than it had been, but hey, it was worth it for a good laugh. When she stood again, the boys were all running around, avoiding Frankie. Knowing Clint would never let her stress her wounds in a game, she cheerfully continued with Plan B.

She ended up sitting on the table with her feet on the bench, balancing her guitar in her lap and playing every happy song she could bring to mind. Spirits, already high among the now-childish Gladers, rose exponentially. They began to sing loudly along to choruses of her songs they'd already heard as they ran around. Fred came out of the Homestead with a sheet of wood and the paint that WICKED had supplied them.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked cheerfully.

"Have I ever?" she asked, grinning at him over her shoulder. He smiled and set the sheet of wood down on the table.

"Painting?"

"Yep."

Ellie smiled openly and strummed her guitar, Fred's happiness being contagious, as always.

The day passed quickly. The Gladers snacked without really caring for a meal, and threw themselves back into fun and games. It finally felt, for once, like a weekend. The only thing that was missing was a movie.

It felt good to stick up their middle fingers to the rules and act like children for once. The hearts of the Gladers soared, even the ones who thought theirs couldn't. After tag wore off, they played Hide and Seek for a while, and then reversed it to play Sardines, which ended up with everyone crowded under the same bed in the Homestead, trying to control their giggling.

Jack finally found them when he heard Stephen say, "Owen, get your foot out of my foot!" and everyone either laughed aloud or ssh'd him. Getting out from under the bed was an uncomfortable, but hilarious, ordeal, and everyone ended up laughing. Ellie had to grab Newt's hands and pull him from under the bulk of Frankie, who never stopped apologizing, and it was only difficult because she was cracking up.

A few people tried out Ellie's guitar, but only Mark the Slicer and Justin the Track-hoe were really good. Ellie spent the day trading out positions on the guitar with them, each taking a turn when they could remember the fingerings to a new tune. It was rare that day that the music stopped.

When she wasn't making music, she sat next to Fred so she could borrow the colorful face paint. While some Gladers tussled and ran around, others sat around the table with them so they could get things "tattooed" on themselves. Minho asked mostly for the Gladers' curse words, so she painted the word "shuck" on the back of his neck, on his shoulders, and then on his face (which was only hard because everyone else kept making him laugh). At the end, he was the whole rainbow of Glader slang.

"You and your colorful language."

As the natural light was dimming, Frypan's feast was finally shown to them.

It was amazing. He'd made miniature hamburgers, cut potatoes into fries, made pieces of garlic bread (which were absolutely devoured), put together a fried chicken salad which even Ellie, who could remember hating her vegetables, absolutely loved, and he even whipped up some barbecue sauce for a bowl of pulled pork.

Everyone crowded the feast and piled their plates with food that they ate while snacking. Newt, Ben, and Stephen weaved their way to Ellie, with a rag-wrapped stick that looked like it was meant to be a torch.

"Time to start a party, don't you think?" Newt said over the cacophony of Gladers. He handed the torch to her and pulled out a matchbox.

The torch went up spontaneously, and Ellie held it away quickly as a wave of heat hit her face.

"Give the word," Ben grinned, arm around Stephen.

Ellie shrugged and raised the torch over her head. Glancing at her friends, she said, "Let there be light," and threw the lit torch into the bonfire. The fire caught quickly and the whole thing was burning within a minute.

A cheer rose from the guys, and a ridiculous happiness rose in Ellie accordingly. She threw her arms around Newt and kissed him.

"It's a real party now!" Ben said from beside them. Ellie broke away, laughing.

Honestly, Ellie had half expected the party to simmer down after the food arrived. She was very wrong. If anything, it got better as the light grew darker. Mark picked up the guitar and played a song while a circle of people stood around a game of limbo. Bark came from the Blood House to prance excitedly through the legs of the Gladers, wagging his tail happily and begging for scraps. Gladers who didn't participate talked over their food in different groups, but everyone changed their activities fluidly. Ellie entered a dance competition with Billy, Jackson, Jack, and Minho. It ended up a draw between she and Jackson, although she would've argued that he was the winner.

—

"Screenshot this, Thomas," Teresa laughed. "This is GOLD."

—

A few Gladers picked up some sticks that hadn't been in the bonfire and pretended to sword fight. It attracted a bunch of others who just joined in at will. Ellie chose to fold up her sleeping bag and recruit Stephen and Minho to do the same. Yelling her battle cry ("FOR THE PUNS") they charged into the midst of the others and began to slap them with comfort. Eventually the ones who had used sticks dropped their weapons and fled to retrieve their own sleeping bags.

Ellie ended up in a one-on-one with Newt while the others all jointly attacked each other.

"You're going easy on me!" she yelled in a joking accusation, hitting him over the head with her "pillow" (although she was going easy on him, too).

"Am not!" He swung his at her and hit her in the shoulder. She stumbled slightly but recovered before he could aim another swing at her.

"Are too!" She swiped hers at his arm but he blocked.

"Am. Not!"

"Looks like—to settle this—we need—a Newt-ral party!" Ellie grunted a pun in between attacks.

Ben and Stephen, meanwhile, had forged a truce and were back to back fighting together. Minho was winning against Ben, and when he finally got Ben to fall, Stephen turned around and hit him away, bellowing, "I'LL SAVE YOU!" Minho laughed and fled, and Stephen knelt over Ben.

"I am your knight in shining armor," he joked gallantly, helping Ben up, and they kissed, still smiling.

Frypan and his cooks were the first to start to leave the party.

"These shanks're gonna want food in the morning, I s'pose," Frypan said, gesturing around at the rest of the Gladers. "We gotta get ready for you starving klunkheads."

Three of the Runners were next to make their exits, since they had to go out the next day. More and more people drifted away from the party to go to sleep, until around twenty-five people were left: Ellie's whole squad of the Builders, Fred, Minho, and Newt; Nick and Alby; the Baggers; the Sloppers, and the Bricknicks. Finn and Jack were the last two.

The wild, euphoric feeling of the party had simmered down, but, unwilling to let it die, the remaining Gladers formed a large circle and excitedly played Truth or Dare. Ellie was sandwiched between Gally and Newt.

"Not a sleepover till you've played Truth or Dare," Ben called out, a grin on his face.

"I'll go first!" Minho said, too eagerly. He searched the circle for his victim, and settled on Alby. "Truth or dare, Alby?"

Alby shook his head, smirking, and said, "Truth. Any day."

"You're no fun," Minho complained. "Fine—who," he paused for dramatic effect, "do you think is the _coolest_ Glader?"

Alby sat back, thinking, with a smug look on his face. "Hmm… I'm gonna say…Stephen."

" _OOOOOOOOOOOOH_ ," crowed everyone.

"Sorry, mate, I'm taken!" Stephen yelled over their noise, and those who heard laughed and repeated it, as kids do, to those who hadn't.

"Slim it!" Alby called. "My turn now! I choose _Billy_ for truth or dare."

"Dare!" Billy laughed. "Fight me!"

"Alright, I dare you to _kiss_ ," Alby paused, and already Gladers began to snigger in apprehension, " _Nick_."

" _Don't_ kiss Nick!" Nick contradicted instantly, but Billy was already getting up and approaching him. "Do not!" Nick scrambled to his feet and ran, and Billy gave chase in a second. Ellie and a few other Gladers stood from the circle, laughing and wanting to have a good view of the proceedings, which consisted mostly of Nick dodging Billy and weaving around the Box to escape him.

Newt cupped his hands around his mouth. "Stop playing hard to get, Nicholas!"

Billy finally grabbed Nick's arm and skidded to a halt, slowing him down. Nick tried to pull his hand away, but Billy leaned forward and quickly kissed him on the cheek. Then he skipped backwards to avoid anything Nick might've swung at him. He raised his hands disarmingly.

"Hey, now, was that _so_ bad?"

Nick scowled as they came and sat back in the circle. "I hate you people."

"Well done, Billy, I didn't think that was actually possible," Alby congratulated him.

"You especially," Nick added.

"My turn!" Billy butted in. "Truth or dare… _Stephen_."

"Truth," Stephen said confidently.

"When we get outta this place, what's the first thing you're gonna do?"

"Oh—oh oh, I got this," he blurted. "I'm gonna go to a movie at some theater and no matter how bad it is, I'm gonna watch the whole thing with _bae—_ " Stephen put his arm around Ben "—and I'm gonna eat all the popcorn I can and I'm gonna _like it._ "

A bunch of Gladers cheered, picturing it.

"Right, truth or dare, Will?"

The massive Bagger thought for a second. "Truth."

"Ugh. Okay, who do you think is the most attractive Glader?"

"Ellie, probably." Will answered frankly.

"Woah hey what," Ellie said, shock on her face. " _What_?"

"Ooh, look out, Newt's got competition," someone teased, and had she seen who it was, Ellie would probably have beaten them up.

As it was, she just called out, "I'll fight you, you shuck."

Will waited until the giggling died out and said, "Truth or dare, Frankie?"

Frankie shrugged. "Dare. Why not."

"Dare you to date Alex."

Frankie's eyebrows raised and he kept his face still. He made a brief _Why not_ face and turned to Alex.

"Got any plans on Saturday?" he asked casually, and Alex almost suffocated, he was laughing so hard.

Ellie cupped her hands around her mouth. "Guess you could say he's a _Keeper_ , Alex!"

Next to her, Newt's head rolled back in teasing exasperation. "You're going to be the bloody death of me." She grinned and leaned into him.

" _Frankly_ , I'll be busy then," Alex said in response to Ellie's pun, and those in the circle who hadn't yet doubled over like her pun had caused them physical pain face-palmed and squirmed.

"Oooh, friend-zoned," teased Minho, laughing.

"Ellie!" Frank called out over the cackles of their friends.

"Dare!" Ellie yelled back, and everyone quieted down, waiting apprehensively for Frankie's dare, which turned out to be horrendous.

"Dare you to kiss Gally."

People went mad in an _eruption_ of protests and noise.

"Oy!" Newt yelled.

" _Ouch_ ," Gally yelped, sounding offended.

"Woah, shank, too soon."

" _Wow_."

 _"_ Frankie over here breaking up relationships!"

"Come on, man, we all know who she really wants to kiss!" Ben cried, and everyone _ooooooooh'd_.

"Ben," Ellie turned to him. "Ben."

"Yeah?"

"Shut your face."

Ben laughed, throwing his head back. The cacophony of protests of the other Gladers continued.

"FINE," Ellie bellowed over their noise after a while, to shut them up, and turned to Gally.

"Woah, _no_ ," Gally said, raising his hands in defense. "No kissing please."

Ellie reached out and struggled to pin his hands down, a knowing grin on her face. "Gally—Gally—hey, hey, kid. Trust me. Do you trust me?"

"No one else to trust," Gally muttered grudgingly, reluctantly lowering his hands. Ellie put her hands on either side of his head and kissed him on the forehead. Gally sniggered as some people applauded in approval of her bending of the rules. "Thanks, Mum."

Ellie jokingly put her hand on his shoulder. "You're welcome, my son." He laughed.

The game went on. With Bark in his lap, Fred claimed the option of Truth, and then said that he'd rather survive in a zombie apocalypse than live in the Maze. Stan had to reach behind him and feed Minho a piece of barbecue on Fred's dare. Jackson, the only spoilsport of the day, refused Fred's dare to eat a handful of grass. Jack willingly engaged in his dare: a dance-off to whatever tune Ellie decided to sing. Gordon, the Bagger, had a truth, and said he'd rather be a Runner.

Alex chose Truth.

"Pretend you're gay—which guy do you have a crush on?"

Alex scoffed. "Hah! _Pretend?!_ Rick, obviously. Easy."

Ellie nodded with approval. Rick was cool—he always came into the Map Room asking, "So how's the escape plan going?" which was kind of annoying, but also endearing, in a way.

The game went on and the excitement and laughter eventually melted into an earnest bonding session between the Gladers. It felt oddly _normal_ to just hang out with friends, like suddenly they were all just best friends all at a summer camp together. Like it was the normal world and they would go back to a school together after the camp ended. Like maybe they would sit in class and pretend to pay attention and text each other under the desks and after school they'd all sit in a room and teach the material to themselves.

While everyone else grew quiet with smiles on their faces, Ellie felt an old sense of homesickness in her stomach. That sense of longing she'd had four months ago when she'd arrived. A nostalgia for something she couldn't quite remember.

A sad thought hit her: Henry and Edward could've been here. _Should've_ been here. Instead, Edward's body had never been found, and Henry was lying, cold and dead, a few hundred meters away. Two best friends that had never had the chance to remember a party together before they were killed.

 _Was it her fault they were trapped here?_

 _Newt said it wasn't._

 _What if he's wrong?_

 _It could be my fault._

 _I wouldn't have._

 _I might have._

 _Fred said we were_ all _the Killzone Experiment Department. All of us. Not just me._

 _Fred could be wrong._

"You look worried," Newt said quietly. Ellie started out of her mental argument and turned to look into his eyes.

There're the butterflies again.

"Nah," she responded. "No, just…thinking."

"Sure you were," Newt agreed. "Thinking about something worrying."

"Yeah, maybe," Ellie murmured. She couldn't tell him what it really was; he'd already reassured her about it, and she couldn't make him have that conversation again. "Worried that I kissed Gally tonight and not you."

Newt snorted. "Then don't worry. I don't feel threatened."

Ellie smiled, anything he said making her feel better.

"Well," Minho said from the other side of the circle, breaking the comfortable silence that the rest still participated in, "I'm gonna go to bed now. It's been a great day, shanks—we should do this every month."

"Good that," Ben agreed, and most looked to Nick—the party was ending, and Nick was back in charge.

Nick shrugged. "We'll see."

Everyone took that as a _yes_ , and began to stand from the circle. Newt slipped his hand into Ellie's, remembering with an ironic smile that the first time he'd held her hand was when he was trying to keep her from bloodying her own palm.

Ben had moved his sleeping bag nearer to Stephen's a few months ago. It was Ellie's turn to move hers closer to Newt's. Gally, Jeff, Stan, and Finn (the Gladers who slept near her) assured her they wouldn't be offended, and Ellie set her sleeping bag down next to his when they brought their bags back from the pillow fight scene.

They may or may not have gone to sleep with their fingers touching.

—

Thomas sat back in his chair as the Gladers ended their party. They were up way later than they usually were, and the personnel in WICKED's control room had shifted to the night shift an hour ago. They weren't breaking any rules by being up so late, but it still felt like a rebellious teenage move.

"Guess we'll never have parties like that in the Glade."

Teresa smirked. "No way. It won't have time to settle in their minds."

Thomas gazed, almost longingly, at the screen, where Newt and Ellie were walking side by side. On an impulse, Thomas leaned forward and captured the moment by pressing a single button. Newt's face was just beginning to grin, and Ellie was looking towards him, a smile already spread widely across her face. Thomas smiled ruefully as the screenshot saved, and sat back.

Teresa watched him, knowing exactly what was on his mind as usual. She was about to say something—but what could she say? Nothing. And so that was what she said. Nothing.

—

Ellie started running the Maze with Minho again the next day.

"The sooner I'm back up and running, the sooner we find the way out of this hellhole."

Minho ran slower to go easy on her, and even though it hurt her pride, the aching in her stomach forced her to suck it up and accept it. Being back in the Maze for the first time was nerve-wracking—Ellie kept expecting a Griever to be around every corner. The nervousness dropped a pit in her stomach that added to the pain of her scars. Her shoulder hurt constantly, but she ignored it so she wouldn't have to slow them down even more. Her screwed up leg ached every once and a while, but it had healed over pretty well. She went back to slapping the World In Catastrophe signs, which made her feel a little better, but an obscure paranoia weighed on her that someone was watching, tracking her every time she touched a part of the Maze. She barely refrained herself from hitting a beetle blade off the wall, remembering what had happened to Henry.

She'd expected herself to need to get used to running the Maze again, but instead, her mind tracked their progress as it usually did, which was so encouraging that it almost zeroed out the embarrassment of the slow running.

 _Almost_.

Because they were running slower, Minho had the breath to make small talk mostly to tease her.

"Bit slow today, aren't we, shankette?" he asked, running backwards for a second to grin at her.

"Yeah, Minho. Almost like I got stabbed by a massive slug monster or something."

"Ehhh, you're _fine_ ," he waved it off, jokingly casual. "Just a scratch, right?"

"Sure, Minho. Just a scratch." Ellie put her hand on her aching shoulder-wound, where the Griever's needle had gone all the way through her body from the back to come out of the front. Even the thought of that pain was enough to make her throw up a little bit in her mouth. She spat it out onto the rock floor of the Maze. _Just a scratch, indeed._

—

Newt was waiting for them when they ran back out of the Maze, and stood by her as she and Minho stretched. He didn't bother asking if they'd found anything—until they came back shrieking they'd found the way out, it had been a normal, desolate day as a Runner.

"How's your—well—"

"My _every_ thing?" Ellie interrupted and grinned—more like grimaced—and shrugged her non-injured shoulder in a sort of _what can you do_ gesture. "Hey. I'll live."

"Not great, then, I expect."

"Yeah. Beginning to see why you hate the Maze so much, Salamander."

"It's like trying to find your way out of the friend-zone, am I right?" Minho stood and elbowed both Newt and Ellie childishly. Ellie tried to hold in a laugh, but ultimately failed.

"Yeah. Come on, shankette. We've got some map-making to do, remember?"

"Right."

"See ya, El."

"Likewise, Salamander."

Mapmaking was just as boring as it had always been, but at least Minho let it be brief. Ellie noticed that the Runners were all in pretty high spirits, anyway, carried over from the previous day's party. Even Hank, who Ellie still didn't like and couldn't really stand to talk to, was in a happier mood.

When the Keeper of Runners finally put his maps aside into a chest, he stopped them all from leaving.

"We still got a few more minutes before dinner, shanks, so I wanna discuss something with you before I bring it to the Council." No one said anything, so he continued. "I was thinking—we already got five Runners, which is surplus, meaning, by the plan we'd been going with, that every Runner got a day off once in a while. Like every four days we each get a day off on a rotation schedule. I was thinking instead of that, we should recruit some newbies and get enough for two Runners per Door."

Ellie raised her eyebrows and glanced over at Rick and Owen, who made eye contact with her with interested expressions. She shrugged, looking back at Minho.

"Seems like a great idea to me."

"Yeah, but who have you got in mind?" Owen asked.

"And what if no one wants to be a Runner?" was Hank's contribution.

"I think it'll work in theory— _if_ we can find good Runners who actually agree to do it," Rick said. "It'll be nice to have two people per section."

Minho nodded. "I'll talk to Nick about it. You're right, it may not work. But, shuck it, let's be optimistic here. Imagine getting days off."

"You're spoiling us."

He snorted. "Okay, shanks, get out of here, then. Go hope Fry doesn't poison you this time."

He, Rick and Hank exited the Map Room, but Ellie called Owen back—the Runner who'd actually been stung that she could talk to.

"Hey, Owen, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Yeah," he sat back down, facing her. "What's up."

"You've been through the Changing, yeah?"

He took a deep breath uncomfortably, looking away as if to detach himself from the memory. "Not something I'd care to relive. But yeah."

"Did you get memories back, too?"

His eyes flicked back to meet hers, and he was quiet for a long time before nodding slowly. Almost imperceptibly. "Yeah," he whispered, eyes darting away again.

"Why didn't you tell anyone that's what it did?"

"I just—I," he started, swallowing forcefully. "It was too…sensitive. I didn't want to tell Gladers about remembering the real world—having memories of great things like your parents is something everyone wants. And it's the saddest thing you could have. Remembering your parents and then wondering how you came to be here. Like your parents with all those great things about them gave you up to be in _here_." He stopped himself, breathing heavily with emotion. His voice had risen with thoughts he'd been suppressing flowing out.

"Then," he added, trying to give a weak huff of laughter, "If people knew they got memories back from getting stung by Grievers, they'd all go risking their shank asses to go into the Maze so they can go through the Changing. And then, all the ones who survived would all have my torture. Wondering why your family would give you up." Owen looked away, his neck tense.

"And then there's something called the F—" Owen cut off abruptly, a muscle in his jaw working as he clamped his mouth shut. His hand went up to his throat, and for a second he seemed to subtly throttle himself.

"Owen?"

His hand and jaw relaxed, and he just massaged his neck resignedly. He shook his head, still not looking at her. "Nothing. Doesn't matter."

Ellie shrugged. "Okay. I'm sorry about your family—but they had to have a good reason, right?"

Owen glanced at her, but didn't hold eye contact. "You can remember your parents. Can you remember their reason for throwing you away?"

Ellie glanced around the table as if searching for a visual clue. "No," she said quietly. "I can only remember my father, anyway. And Newt." She added that last part much more quietly, but Owen still heard her.

"You knew Newt before?" He allowed himself to smile at the ground. "That makes sense."

Ellie smiled, too. "Yeah," she agreed, falling back into her few golden memories of Newt as a child for just a second. She shook her head to shake herself out of it. "Well. I guess we should go to dinner now."

Owen nodded. "Yeah, this emotional roller coaster has been fun, but let's just drop it, right?"

"Good, that," Ellie agreed. "But the other Gladers already know about the memory thing, by the way. And none of them have done anything stupid yet."

Owen shrugged, actually looking at her now. "Well, maybe I was wrong, then. Good."

—

Ellie sat with her friend group as usual for dinner, with Newt on her right and Ben on her left, taking up their own side of the group's table. Stephen was on the corner nearest to Ben. Ellie began to feel the Glade settling back into its usual orderly way, watching the other Gladers mill around finding their seats among the picnic tables near the Homestead. As she sat down, she told Minho and Newt why the other Runners hadn't spread the news about getting their memories back. Ben heard her, even though she'd tried to say it aside just to the Keeper and former Keeper, and made her tell the whole table. She relented, and said it to the rest of her friends.

"And don't spread the word, 'right? Keep Owen's secret. And—" she felt the need to add, "don't—don't go _looking_ to get stung, okay? Don't do stupid things."

"Good that," Stephen agreed, raising his cup of water before taking a gulp.

"Yeah, here's to not going through significant amounts of agony to get our depressing memories back," Alex added, and a ripple of laughter swept through them.

"Oh, hey Alex," Minho was saying meanwhile. "So I hear you've got a thing for Rick."

Alex blushed red, ducking his head. His wavy brown hair shook as he averted his face from his friends.

"Don't tell," he muttered, barely audible.

"Right," Dave agreed sarcastically. "Because you totally didn't tell twenty other people last night, either."

"Don't hate, either."

"Hey, don't worry about it, man, it's cool," Gally said encouragingly, putting a hand on Alex's shoulder. Alex grinned at him and shrugged him off.

"Yeah, no one's told yet," Ellie said.

"What happens in the parties stays in the parties," Stephen added.

Sitting at the very edge of his bench, Fred leaned over and whispered something in Alex's ear, too quietly for anyone else to hear. Alex looked at him in surprise, and whispered something back. Fred nodded and gave a final statement, shouldering Alex encouragingly.

"By the way, Fred," Ellie said, distracting everyone else from asking him about what he'd whispered, "Did you ever finish that painting of yours?"

"He did, actually!" said Frankie, picking up the piece of wood Fred had been drawing on from behind the bench and holding it up to show. Fred blushed and seemed to shrink down into himself even more than usual.

The painting was incredible. Fred had only used black and white face paint, and it was only barely distinguishable from a photograph. He had rendered an incredibly detailed picture of an older woman (ancient, in the context of the teenaged Glade), staring out at them from the board. Her back was rigid in a dignified way, and her head was held high, looking down on them as if they were in terrible trouble.

—

Thomas and Teresa almost burst into laughter once the beetle blade got a good angle on the painting.

"Do you see it?" Teresa whispered excitedly, her held-back laugh making her voice seem higher. Thomas was shaking, trying to laugh under his breath so that he wouldn't attract the attention of their superiors. His hand was pressed against his mouth as he tried to smother the hilarity of Fred's realistic caricature painting of Dr. Paige.

"How did he—?"

"She must've really imprinted—"

"Of course _that's_ what he remembers."

"Fred, why?!"

—

"How did you _do_ that, dude?" Minho demanded, in awe.

"Woah," Ben whispered.

"That's incredible," Gally agreed.

"You could say—it's—in _Fred_ ible," Ellie said, making finger guns at the rest of them. Fred was doing his rare, all-out, contagious kind of smile as he looked sheepishly at his painting.

"You don't think it looks—kind of—unrealistic?" he asked. "I asked Alby, and he said it looks fine, but it looks off to me."

"What are you talking about, Fred?" Frankie demanded. "You're kidding, right? This is awesome!"

"You sure?"

"Freddie, seriously," Newt said. "We're sure."

"Fred, in all honesty, your painting is legitimately higher quality than like every Glader in real life."

Fred opened his mouth to protest some more, and Minho cut him off: "Dude, if whatever you're about to say is some of this self-doubting klunk, don't say it. It's shucking awesome. Seriously."

Fred was still smiling, and said quietly, "I kind of wanted to hang it in the Homestead, because I thought it would look cool in there with the flickering light–? Like a horror movie."

"That _would_ be cool."

"Epic."

"Did you name her—the woman?"

Fred paused for a second. "No," he said. "Not really."

"Name 'er Ellie," Minho said. "She's the only girl we've ever known."

Ellie laughed, eating a bite of leftover barbecue. "Yeah, for some reason you guys are so unpopular with the ladies."

"Perfect," Stephen said cheerfully, in a serious manner that still made everyone giggle.

 _So maybe life in the Glade_ is _getting better_.

—

—

Project Pandora had been Aris's idea originally. It had come to him quickly after Dr. Paige had explained the Maze Trials to him. He'd been a clever kid—and had always been interested in psychology. Out of his own fear of going into the Maze, he'd wanted to get something good to happen for the Gladers—something to make all of their futures seem a little less futile, maybe give their minds something else to focus on.

When he'd tentatively pitched the idea to Dr. Paige, he hadn't thought it out enough, but she'd seemed interested and fascinated by his boldness of proposing another Variable. For a long time, though, Aris hadn't heard anything about it, and he and his friends had simply continued their schooling in the WICKED compound. Then, when he, Rachel, Thomas, and Teresa had been there for a year, Dr. Paige brought Ellie and Max in.

Those weren't their real names, obviously, but then, the only _real_ name in the compound that he knew was his own, and he wasn't allowed to use it for any purpose.

They were both the perfect candidates. They were always making jokes and trying their hardest to cheer everyone else up. Nothing made either of them happier than making other people smile. They both recognized and embraced their roles as the hope signals, and began working past their tentative new beginning at WICKED by making friends with everyone.

Ellie and Max had been incorporated into the administration of the Maze Trials. They helped design the technicalities in the walls—it had actually been Max's idea to add the World in Catastrophe plaques on their walls. Aris had thought that the two had been on the same level as the Group A and Group B partners.

That changed when the original four had been called into a meeting with Dr. Paige just a week before the original Gladers were sent up. Ava Paige had taken Aris's idea and manipulated it to fit her design for the Variables. Aris could remember being shocked at the plot twist the director threw at them, and in fact he was _still_ shocked that she would plan something like this.

" _No!_ " he'd protested then. "You can't—how can you _suggest_ that; they'll be heartbroken! That would erase the entire purpose of the project!" To get through to Directer Ava Paige, he'd learned, you had to put everything in terms of projects and Variables and tests.

"We've taken this into account, Aris," Dr. Paige had told him calmly. "We've come up with a plan for combatting that." And she'd outlined the whole process, but Aris hadn't been listening. The other three, he'd noticed with fury, were sitting obediently in their chairs, looking stricken but resigned to the plan. Rachel had stared at him with pity, knowing his protests would not change Dr. Paige's mind. Nothing could, once she'd made it up like this.

"You are all forbidden to tell them about any of this," she concluded the meeting, standing up. "They will be told when the time is right."

Aris should've told them.

The instant he'd been let out of that meeting, he should've sought out Ellie and Newt and Max and Marie and told them everything, but he didn't. And the worst—the _worst_ part was that he just kept on acting like their friend, smiling and laughing with them like nothing was wrong, like nothing was ever going to change, and he never did anything other than what WICKED wanted.

But what could he do? All of this was engineered to find a cure, and as many times as his heart broke, he _couldn't_ sacrifice the rest of the world even for some of his closest friends. Rachel was still his best friend—he'd known her since he was four—but even she couldn't talk to him about this. He wouldn't let her. He could barely think about it, himself.

He would never forgive himself, either.


	7. Help Her

**A/N: From here on out it's gonna be primarily dark.**

* * *

"When?"

"Patience. A few more months."

—

—

Ellie gasped for air as she jerked awake, lurching up into a sitting position and fumbling to hug her knees to her chest. Breathing heavily, she tried to remember why she had woken up. Her hand subconsciously traveled to her shoulder, massaging the still-present scar from the Griever's stinger. Newt shifted from beside her.

"Another?"

Ellie turned to look at him. He was propped up on his elbow, looking just as adorable as ever. Recently his deep, dark eyes had fewer and fewer bags under them, whereas now it felt like she was always tired.

She shook her head and lay back, sighing, "Yeah."

Still on his elbow, Newt pulled a strand of hair off her face. "Anything useful this time?"

Ellie smirked and rolled her head to the side to look at him. "Useful…?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, "You know, like _Oh bloody hell I've remembered the secret of the Maze and how to get out_ kind of useful?" Ellie raised a rueful, skeptical eyebrow and he shrugged again. "Well. Worth a bloody try, right?"

Ellie sighed again, frustratedly. "If they're gonna keep coming, you'd think they'd just give me something helpful already."

"At least they're coming back at all. Most of us still have the memory-less curse."

At this, Ellie pushed herself up onto her elbow. "Well, it's not so much of a blessing if I lose sleep over it, is it?" Her head lolled on her shoulder.

"Hey," Newt said, tilting his own head to follow hers, and waiting to continue until she met his eyes. "You're gonna get better. You're proof of that," he added as he reached over and pushed her off balance, and she laughed quietly as she rolled onto her back again. Then the smile faded.

"Yeah. 'I'm gonna get better.' How can you know that, Salamander?"

His soft smile hadn't gone away. He paused, thinking it out, and Ellie was sure she'd stumped him on that question until he said quietly, " _I_ did."

Ellie's heart started aching for him again. She rolled on her side to look at him, and he got down off his elbow to get to her level. "Better," she whispered. "Not fixed."

He smiled and shrugged one shoulder. "Sometimes _better_ is about all you can ask for. And _better_ always takes time."

"Well, it's been a month," Ellie muttered irritably, but Newt couldn't mistake the sadness buried underneath her frustration. "It's been a bloody _month_ , we've got a new bloody _Greenbean_ , and I've only gotten worse."

"I didn't get better in one month."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I just—just—oh, never mind."

"Hey, but you've still got me," Newt reminded her, reaching over and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And you've got your day off tomorrow."

"Our esteemed Keeper of Runners told us to review the maps on our off-days."

"Well, you can still afford to sleep a little later in the morning," Newt offered as condolence. "So tell me about your newest memoir."

—

Ellie had been having trouble sleeping since Finn's party, like now that she didn't have something specific to focus her mind on, the rest of her brain decided she should focus on, well, everything. It seemed like every other night a new memory came back, pushing past the mental block WICKED had put in her head. But, they were the most stupid, useless little memories she could possibly have gotten. The other Gladers didn't understand their own blessing that because of their wiped memories, they couldn't remember anything embarrassing they'd ever done. They never needed to bother staying up late thinking about those stupid little things. She did, now.

Even if the memories weren't unpleasant, it hurt for them to leak past WICKED's wall for them. It was like getting a migraine as she slept, but she couldn't wake up until the memory had fully played out. So she was stuck there, head hurting, watching herself as a child proudly announce that she knew everything. Then, when she woke up, she was _always_ , without fail, holding her breath, like she was being held underwater.

Even those weren't the worst nights.

When her sleep issue had begun, she had had night terrors of Grievers all around her, stalking the Glade and stabbing one Glader every night she'd seen them. Since then, the terrors had mostly gone away. But the rest hadn't.

The first time she realized something was very wrong with her was when she had woken up standing in the kitchen. Newt and Ben had been there, staring at her in concern and fear. They'd asked her to put the knife down, and she'd looked at her hand to find that she was clutching a serrated kitchen knife. She'd dropped it instantly, staggering backwards and almost fainting from the stabbing pain in her head.

Then she was left there, hands shaking, head pounding, crying embarrassingly, and Newt hugging her and telling her she was going to be okay, trying to explain to them how she'd had a memory-dream of being told in school not to run with scissors.

And that wasn't the only time it had happened, either. Now, the Gladers' Hope Signal went to sleep in fear that she would wake up standing an inch away from the Maze Doors as they opened, or lying on the ground with her hands raised to defend herself from an attack from an unseen bully, or strumming discordant strings of notes on her guitar.

The sleep paralysis was horrible, too.

More than once, when she wasn't sleepwalking or having memory dreams, she'd woken to find herself unable to move for a terrifying sixty seconds until she jerked herself to her hands and knees, shaking. Newt didn't know about those nights, because those were the quiet ones and Ellie couldn't bear for him to be any more concerned about her.

She was still haunted by that look she had woken to when she had been holding the knife.

She'd made him afraid for her.

She was afraid _of_ herself.

She was losing hope and still pretending to be the Glade's hope sign. She still sang, she still told every pun she could think of. At least everyone else believed it was getting better. Almost everyone was almost always in a good mood now, even if there was no reason to be. Robert—the new Greenie—had incited another party that had been just as well-received as Finn's. The highlight of that was that Musical Chairs kind of turned into a hilarious flirting match between the Gladers that just ended up breaking the rules and sitting on the others' laps.

Nick had slapped Ellie on the back and proclaimed she'd started a great tradition. And that night Newt shook her awake in the middle of the Deadheads and caught her as her legs buckled underneath her.

Fred had noticed, as he always did, that something was wrong. And subtly, like he always did, he tried to help, approaching Newt and Ellie the morning after he'd figured out what they were trying to hide.

"Are you okay?"

Ellie had been silent a few seconds, still flushing the night terrors out of her head, and replied quietly, "No."

"What's wrong?"

"Tonight?" Ellie had asked bitterly, trying not to cry. "Tonight, I woke up and saw Grievers climbing over the walls into the Glade and I couldn't move…or speak…to warn you guys. And by the time I could sit up, they vanished."

She'd let Newt finish for her. "Other nights, she's been waking up gasping for air with terrible headaches, and having memory-dreams where she sleepwalks and, um, kind of acts out what she was dreaming."

Fred had tried to help, but all he could give was the term sleep-paralysis and that it was nothing to be afraid of, that it looked like there was just something wrong with Ellie's muscle atonia—muscle weakness that was supposed to keep you from acting out your dreams—and it happened when REM sleep was disrupted, but it wasn't harmful.

"That doesn't help if she's losing sleep over it, Fred," Newt had shot at him, and Fred had shrunk away until Newt had sighed and apologized.

"It's okay. You're stressed. It's okay," Fred had said understandingly.

"Do you know how to stop it?" Ellie asked.

"No. I'm sorry. I can't remember everything about it." Never had Fred felt so useless. He'd slunk away feeling horribly guilty that he couldn't help like he wanted to. And the worst part was that the next few times he saw her she was laughing and smiling as usual. He hadn't told anyone because they'd asked him not to. That, he didn't regret, because it was highly unlikely any Glader could've helped her if her symptoms were because of the Changing and whatever WICKED had done to her head. And he assumed, correctly, they were.

Ellie did check with Owen, and had even spoken to Hank for once to see if what was happening to her had happened to them, too.

It hadn't.

The morning after Ellie's most recent returned memory, Newt went to Zart and asked if he could take the day off to make sure Ellie was okay.

Zart frowned. "Why, what's wrong with her?"

"She had trouble sleeping last night," Newt said smoothly. "Probably stressing about the whole Hope Sign thing. I'm just worried."

"Everyone does their part, remember, Newt," Zart cautioned. "Rule number three."

"I know the rules," Newt almost snapped at him, but he reined himself in quickly, and continued, "I'll be helping her in the Map Room."

Zart made a resigned face. "Fine. _One_ day. _One_."

Newt nodded understandingly and headed back to their picnic table, squeezing in next to Ellie, who was grinning around at their friends as they talked.

"No, shuckface, I'm not going to ask him out," Alex was saying.

"Why not, Alex? You've been into him for a month. Just do it," Frankie half-teased.

" _No_."

" _Guys_ , it's not like there's exactly a good place to go out to," Stephen was reasoning.

" _Thank_ you, Stephen," Alex said in relief.

"So basically, ain't got time for dating, then just go up, just walk right on up and kiss him," Finn threw in a suggestion, gesturing with the hand that wasn't holding a sausage link, and giving a cheeky grin.

"What a way to woo your crush," Ellie remarked. "Absolutely flawless. You should definitely do it." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Alex, making him roll his eyes in embarrassment.

"Come on though, bro," Dave said. "How bad can it be?"

"Pretty bad. It can be pretty bad."

" _Nah_ , come on. We're all friends here."

"Hey, I've got an idea. Instead of talking about me and my forever-loneliness, let's talk about something not that, 'right?"

The group grudgingly moved the conversation to different topics, and eventually grudgingly stood and left to go to their various jobs.

—

Newt and Ellie quickly found themselves staring blankly at maps in the dim Map Room. Again, as always, they were infuriatingly meaningless. Every time they thought they found a pattern, it was thwarted.

"Okay, okay," Ellie groaned when they had compared every section for the past four months. "Let's just—focus on just one shuck section."

They spent thirty minutes glaring at the maps from a section of the Maze, frustratedly trying to decipher whether the lines were the same on both. The progress was agonizingly slow, and they made it through ten maps, finding only three repeats at spastic intervals, before Ellie began to see double. They'd placed some of the maps in columns on the floor, and she'd been pacing along them when she got dizzy. The maps split in two, and she staggered against the wall, shaking her head.

"Newt…?"

His voice spoke back, sounding far-away and muffled, so Ellie could barely understand him. Within a few seconds, she felt his arms around her, holding her upright as the room spun. She seemed to be in slow motion as Newt sat her down against the wall, and his face appeared in front of her. His brow was furrowed in concern, as she'd become accustomed to.

She reflexively tried to hug her knees to her chest, and realized her hands were shaking. She stared at them jittering for a few seconds, chest tightening, before Newt reached out and took both her hands in his own, steadying them. Ellie felt a tear leak from her eye.

"Why does it seem like whenever we hold hands, one of us is in some kind of pain?" he murmured.

"Usually me," Ellie managed through clenching teeth. A sob escaped her lips. "What's—what's happening to me?"

"You're sleep-deprived, is bloody what. Look." He came around to her side and sat next to her, tucking one foot under his other knee. "You're gonna sleep right now, and I'm gonna be right here in case you have a nightmare."

"You know what—what happens. I can't—can't sleep."

Newt leaned his head around to look her in the eye. "Yes, you can." He leaned in and kissed her, since, eh, they were that close anyway, so why not? He saw another tear slip out of her eye as her ragged breaths began to come more even, and her head sank in defeat onto his shoulder.

"Shuck it," she cursed softly. "I'm so bloody weak."

Glancing at her, Newt reached up and gently closed her eyes for her, and she slept.

As her breathing steadied, Newt finally let the pain show on his face, doing his best not to shift his shoulder. He was so unbelievably worried about her. She was supposed to be the strong, hopeful, witty one. Not someone who could never sleep, someone with night terrors, who faked her smiles every day. He grinned with the irony as a tear of empathy escaped his eyes. That was _his_ job.

—

Luckily, Fred brought them lunch, and Newt didn't have to explain Ellie's whole situation to someone new.

As he usually did, Fred materialized silently in the Map Room, somehow managing to open the door without being noticeable. Newt hardly bothered turning his head to look as Fred effortlessly crept over without making a sound. He placed a platter of grilled cheese sandwiches on Newt's lap, and began to gather the pages strewn about on the floor, taking care to put them in order, and placed the pile on the table.

Newt carefully took a bite of grilled cheese as Fred sat cross-legged in front of them with his own plate of sandwiches.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

Newt took a deep breath. "I think she had a panic attack."

Fred swallowed, his eyes darting seriously around the room. Somehow, he'd stayed calm through everything they told him.

"She's not the first Glader to have a panic attack," he murmured thoughtfully. "But all these things you've told me about happening to her at the same time can't be a coincidence. I think whatever WICKED did to our heads is malfunctioning in hers."

Newt looked up sharply. "Or they're doing this to her on purpose."

Fred nodded thoughtfully. "Or that."

Newt's anger didn't last long. He rested his head back on the wall. "I don't know what to do to help her, Fred. I've been trying to be there to comfort her whenever she needs it, but it's not helping her. No matter what I try, she keeps having these night terrors. What am I supposed to do?"

"Have you tried asking Clint or Jeff? They're the Med-jacks."

Newt shook his head. "She's still supposed to be the Hope Sign, remember? A reminder that we're not going to stay in here forever, or that it's not going to be so buggin' bad forever, at least. What's gonna bloody happen to that if those shanks find out she's this sick?"

"Who knows about it already?"

"You, me, and Ben's seen her sleepwalking one night. I don't know if he knows how bad it is, though."

Fred gave a slight nod. "Don't tell Ben. He's still worried out of his mind that she's a Runner."

"And that means I can't tell our other friends, either, can I?"

"Yeah, they'd tell him. We need people who're good with psychology."

"You."

Fred shook his head in shame. "No, I'm not good enough. I can't help this."

"You're the cleverest one here, in our entire circle of friends, even. Freddie, we need you to figure this out."

"No," Fred said firmly, but still quietly. "What you need is to look outside our circle of friends. I'm not smart enough, Newt. I'm sorry. I can't fix her."

"You don't have to," Ellie muttered, lifting her head from Newt's shoulder and rubbing her eyes. "I'm not your responsibility."

"But you still need help."

She stretched, shaking her head. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Fred." She glanced at Newt. "How long was I out?"

"A couple hours."

Ellie shrugged with some of her old cocky confidence. "And not a single nightmare. See, we've already found the trick. Don't sleep long enough for it to start hurting."

"Good luck with that," Newt said. "We still need to worry about you having had a panic attack."

"As panic attacks go," Ellie bluffed, "it wasn't _too_ bad, right? Coulda been _way_ bloody worse."

"One tends to lead to more," Fred whispered.

"Only trying to be optimistic," Ellie said, beginning to stand up.

"Woah, woah," Newt caught her and pulled her back to the floor. "Where do you think you're going?"

"We've gotta keep looking at the maps."

"You still need rest."

"If I sleep any more I might have another night terror in the middle of the bloody day and that wouldn't help anyone."

"And the maps will?" Fred asked in a rare statement of boldness. He got to his feet, frowning with gentle sternness that made him suddenly seem a lot bigger than he really was. "Take this seriously, Ellie. You can't just walk this off."

Fred had a very impressive talent that he could make his point in just a few words.

Ellie sighed, eyes darting around the room in anguish that was betrayed by her voice. "Then what am I supposed to do, Fred? Just stop everything until magically somehow I get better?" She paused, feeling the responsibility for all the Gladers on her shoulders. "I can't _do_ that."

"Just—at least _try_ to take it easy, alright?" Newt requested with concern.

Ellie met his eyes for a few seconds, and then looked away. "Yeah…Alright."

—

They spent the rest of the day pretending to look at the maps, but the activity's pointlessness only seemed to increase as they continued to try. When the other Runners finally came jumping into the room, Ellie and Newt were tuned out and staring unseeingly at the maps.

"You guys don't look so hot," Minho commented, swaggering in with amusement. "What, the maps not doin' it for ya today?"

Ellie and Newt turned simultaneously to glare at him with identical expressions. Minho laughed, feeding off of their comical displeasure. He flopped down beside them.

"Get out of here, you guys've probably had enough."

They stood. Ellie raised her eyebrows in tired exasperation. "More than." Minho smirked.

They left to sit at the picnic table and wait for Frypan to call that food was ready. They didn't speak for a while, both trying to think of something to say and rejecting one thing after another. Finally, Ellie let out an infuriated sigh.

"I wish I could just…just _fix_ everything."

Newt grinned ruefully, raising his head to stare at the walls. "Don't we all."

Ellie drummed her fingers on the table agitatedly. "There's just too many things wrong with…everything. Everything seems to go perfectly for a while, and then it just breaks down." She glanced at Newt. "How many months ago was it we predicted I was the signal we were going to get out? Four, five? And now the bloody Creators are trying to drive me in _sane_. And if they're not, then it means that it's literally just _me_ and my _screwed up_ mind. And I can't fix it. I can't fix it. I dunno _how_ to even _begin_ to try to fix it." She sighed heavily again, leaning away from the table. "That and everything else."

Newt slipped his fingers in between hers, waiting until she looked at him.

"You will get better," he said forcefully. "Look at me. We will _find_ a way to get you better, if it's the last thing I do. I would escape this bloody Maze if the _only_ reason I had was to make WICKED fix you."

"But they're not letting us escape the Maze, are they?"

"Hey," Newt said sternly, a defiant fire lighting in his eyes. "Don't you _dare_ give up on me. We're gonna find our way out of the Maze. We're gonna escape, and things are _going_ to get better. And _you're_ not allowed to give up hope. Good that?"

Impossibly, Ellie let his words spark hope up in her again. She even smiled for a few seconds before saying, "You're amazing." She had the urge to kiss him before Ben leapt nimbly into his seat beside her, grinning wildly, hair messed up.

"What's up, shanks, anyone else have a good shuckin' day?"

Ellie frowned at him for a second. "Evidently not as good as yours. What're you grinning about, shuckface?"

"Me." As if on cue, Stephen jumped into his place next to Ben, with the same ridiculous grin.

Surprised, Ellie and Newt glanced at each other. Ellie glanced back at Ben. "Oh," she said simply.

Newt was shaking his head stubbornly. "You know what, I'm just not even going to ask."

Ellie began to switch rapidly between shaking and nodding her head, blinking twitchily, and followed up Newt's words, "I don't even—I don't even want to know."

Fred was putting his plate down, having walked up unnoticed, and pointed out in only mild confusion, "You guys are wearing the other's shirt." His eyes widened and his eyebrows raised ever so slightly as Stephen and Ben continued to grin ridiculously. "Oh. You guys are wearing…each other's shirt. Oh." Fred grinned, shaking his head slightly, and sat down.

"Relaaaax," Stephen chided, stuffing some barbecue in his mouth. "It's not like one of us is going to get preg—"

"STOP," Newt interrupted loudly, even though he was grinning. "Stop. Stuff it. Slim it. We got it, we _don't_ _want_ to _know_. Shut up. Please. Thank you."

"Come _on_ ," Ben appealed to the group. "Let us have our pleasures."

"Oh, oh, apparently whether or not we let you is irrelevant to whether or not you decide to have them," Ellie shot back, with a smile, though, because she was just glad _someone_ in the Glade was having a good time.

Word of the gay boys' relationship spread quickly as the rest of their friend group joined them at the table. Minho heartily slapped Stephen on the back and congratulated them obnoxiously, purely to get on everyone else's nerves. Frankie and Gally both massaged their foreheads and didn't look up for a while. Dave elbowed Alex like the lovably irritating wingman best-friend that he was and muttered something about "You wish that was you."

Finn just laughed and nodded as if he was cheerily resigned to accept whatever the Gladers threw at him by this point. Robert, the new Greenie, and Finn's new responsibility, seemed simply shocked that this had occurred and the only female Glader hadn't been involved, but didn't speak up about his opinion since everyone else seemed to accept this occurrence so readily.

Billy, the Bagger, was there, too, since he seemed to always make it his business to be friendly towards the Greenies. He sat with an amused grimace on his face and proceeded to make sex jokes for the rest of dinner.

Somehow, the group as a whole, all together, managed to cheer Ellie up.

 _God_ , she loved her friends.

—

Ellie woke up to the darkness that night.

 _No. Please._

 _And the day had gone so well._

No migraine, no memory-dream, no sleep walking. That left one option.

She wanted to move. Maybe she could get up, walk around, clear her head, go back to sleep without freaking Newt out. She could feel his fingers brushing against hers. She tried to sit up, and a desperate frustration welled up inside her when she couldn't. Sleep paralysis. Trapped in your own body.

"You look _horrible_ , slinthead," said a sadistic voice from nearby. "You've _really_ screwed yourself over this time."

Ellie's breathing stopped for a second.

 _Edward?_

"Yeah. _Edward_. I'm _so glad_ you remember my name." Edward came around so that she was looking up at his wrathful face, with a cruel grin on it. He was scarred in so many different places it was almost too hard to recognize him, bloody from Grievers and splattered with their disgusting slime. His hair was longer, tangled, and oilier than Ellie remembered. His shirt was tattered and practically just an overblown rag. His eyes seemed to glow yellow at her from the darkness.

"Expected I was gone?" Edward sneered, stooping down so his face was closer to hers. "Expected you'd never hear from me again after you _Banished_ me?" He tilted his head with a sadistic interest. "That must've been before you shucked your head up so badly." He sat back, next to her, reaching over to grab a strand of her hair and curl it between his fingers.

 _Get away from me._

He inhaled like he were considering it. "Hmm, no, don't think I'll do that, love. Now, don't you want to talk to your dear old friend Edward? See, we've lots to talk about, you know, since I left? How about your beloved Newt? No? You became a Runner, that's news to me. How you threw a party when we were gone, when Henry was _dead_? Tell me about _that."_

 _We mourned you._

 _The party wasn't anything to do with you._

"That's the problem, see," Edward waved a finger. "See, you _forgot_ about us. You, who came to me before I was Banished to plead with me. You _forgot_ us. See, I'm _in_ your head, Little Ellie, and I just, I can't see enough _guilt_ on your conscience. That's what I think."

 _I never forgot you, you shuck-faced hellhound. I_ wanted _you to be at the parties. I remembered you. I pitied you._

"I never asked for pity!" Edward roared, slamming his fist on the ground and surging to his feet. "I asked for you to kill Hank, and you couldn't even do me that one favor! He _killed_ Henry! He _would_ have killed _me_! And _you—"_ his voice reached a peak of volume and fury "— _YOU'VE BEEN BEST BUDS WITH HIM IN THE MAZE YOU BANISHED ME TO!"_

 _I NEVER LIKED HIM. I NEVER SPEAK TO HIM!_

" _LIAR_!" Edward screeched, whipping out a ragged backpack, and Ellie vaguely connected it to herself. The one she'd dropped in the Maze when she could barely carry herself away from the Griever, let alone supplies. Edward had found it?

Evidently so.

He yanked a knife out of it, darting forward at alarming velocity and shoving the knife up against her throat, drawing blood instantly.

 _Move,_ Ellie screamed at her body mentally, tears leaking out of each eye. _MOVE! PLEASE, MOVE!_

"Yeah, you can't move, can you, shuckface?" Edward taunted, his malignant, deformed face a few inches from hers. "You 'n WICKED made _real_ sure of that. Man, you just _had_ to go get yourself stung, didn't you." He jammed his thumb into the scar from where the Griever had stabbed her shoulder. "Good thing for me that's when the problems started, and _now_ I can have my revenge with your limp little paralyzed _corpse_ you call a body."

He sneered, leaning closer, and paused to say, "See, I think you'd prefer death to all… _this_ , am I right?"

 _No._

"I think I am. I think deep down you know there's no hope for getting better. Why suffer your whole life through when you're tormented by parasomnia and panic attacks and sleep deprivation?"

 _I'm going to get better. Things always have the hope for getting better. Always. And nothing you can say will change that._

"See…" Edward came closer and closer until his insane eyes took up all of her vision. He smiled cruelly.

" _That's where you're wrong_."

And he slashed the knife across her throat.

Ellie shot up instantly, lungs burning as she gasped for air, trembling, and she began to cry. The night-terror disappeared the instant the sleep-paralysis did, but it didn't matter. Her mind's little trick had done its work, and now Ellie was sobbing openly into her knees, the image of Edward, scarred and disfigured, burnt into her mind.

Newt stirred, and Ellie rolled to her feet, held her breath as another sob pushed its way past the lump her throat and threatened to burst out, and ran. She didn't care where. She was just running to escape. The Glade was a dark blur around her and she feared Edward around every tree and in every shadow.

She stumbled to a halt to fall against the wall of the outside of the Slammer. It was the first time she'd gone back since Edward had been Banished. She slid down the side and rested her head against the metal, shaking. She reached her hand out in front of her face, a test she'd gotten used to putting herself through, and tried to hold her hand still.

 _Fail_.

She closed her jittery fingers into a fist and curled up to huddle against the Slammer. She closed her eyes in defeat.

A tune pierced her ears and she hummed it slowly and sadly, the lump in her throat making the words hard to get out.

 _Runaways; we're the long lost children, running to the edge of the world. Everybody wants to throw us away—broken boy meets broken girl. You said you'd tried it all before, and it only makes things worse. Oh but this time, maybe this time…_

A beetle blade skittered up on the wall in front of her, clinging to the vertical surface. Ellie froze, staring at it through tear soaked eyes, and then shot to her feet and backed away in a sudden fury.

"What are you doing to me?" She demanded, her voice breaking in anguish. " _Why_ are you doing this to me?"

The beetle blade stared back at her for a second, unmoving, and then scampered away. Ellie let out another sob, and fell to her knees again, pressing her hands to her face as if they could prevent the tears. She curled up, hair hanging past her face and hands and touching the dirt she knelt on.

 _Why are you doing this to me?_

 _Please, just let it be over._

She didn't know how long she lay there, but the tears never seemed to stop coming. At some point, arms wrapped around her and she felt the present of Newt, who pulled her up and sat with her against the wall. He let her bury her face in his chest, and kept his arms around her. Wishing to God that Newt didn't have to carry this klunk with her.

She didn't know, but he was crying, too, because he'd had a nightmare that Ellie had jumped off the walls instead of him, and he'd been the beetle blade watching. When he'd woken and she wasn't there, he'd panicked, searching the Glade, and hoping desperately that he'd find her somewhere. Anywhere. Terrified he'd imagined her this whole time. He squeezed his eyes closed and put his forehead against her hair.

And they sat there together, and cried.

—

 _Oh but this time, maybe this time…_

 _Two wrongs make a right._

—

They woke up stiff.

"What happened for you?"

"Night terror. I saw Edward. You?"

"I dreamed you jumped off the wall."

They paused, still huddling together.

"I should get ready…"

"Me too."

"Yeah."

Never had getting to their feet been so painful, but they made it.

Thirty minutes later, Ellie stood in front of her Door as it opened. Glancing around, the other Runners were darting through the opening as soon as they could, but she couldn't quite force herself. The Door opened fully, and she swallowed.

Edward was dead. He wasn't out there.

 _Be brave_ , her father had told her once. _If you're always brave, nothing will hold you back._

 _All right, Dad._

Ellie took a deep breath and ran into the Maze, feeling the ground beneath her feet change into the familiar rock. She'd done this a thousand times. The tightness in her chest eased, and her rhythm returned to her as she ran. Running was actually kind of therapeutic, and she began to feel better.

Strange, how the Maze had become a kind of home. Ellie grinned and slapped a _World in Catastrophe_ plaque as she ran past. A song got stuck in her head. She sang it mentally and paced her footsteps to the beat. Committing the Maze to memory had become like second nature by this point. She was never actively trying anymore, she just looked back after a while and somehow knew exactly which ways she had gone.

She might have run all day if at she hadn't tripped. She yelped and twisted as she fell so she landed on her side instead of her face. She skidded a few inches before coming to a rest. She exhaled incredulously—first time tripping in the Maze— pulled herself up, and sat against the wall. Catching her breath, she checked her watch. It was after lunch.

She laughed quietly and took her backpack out to find the wrapped sandwich.

In the middle of her meal, the hair on her neck abruptly began to stand up. She tensed, glancing around at the Maze surrounding her. Her breathing and heart rate quickened. She put her sandwich down on her backpack and stood, keeping her back to the wall. It felt like something was running up at her from any direction, sprinting at her at an ungodly pace, unseen, with malevolent intentions.

Ellie glanced around, pressing herself against the wall in fear. Her fists clenched in fear. The world started to spin. She struggled to stay upright. If she fell, the thing might get her. But it was okay. There was no one there. Why was she so afraid?

She was trembling. The fear made her feel like the walls were pressing in on her. She had to get out of here. But she couldn't move.

 _It's okay,_ a part of her brain told her. _I'm having a panic attack. I'm going to be okay. Just have to make it through._

How long would it take for the _thing_ to get to her? It felt like it was rocketing towards her at a million miles an hour, hungrily hunting her down to devour her… She couldn't defend herself from this.

She slid down the wall to a sitting position. The claustrophobia hadn't gone. She still imagined something sprinting at her from behind, even though the wall was protecting her vulnerable back. She couldn't close her eyes, and they stared wildly around at the blurring, shaking Maze.

 _It's just a panic attack, it's just a panic attack, it's just a panic attack. Just a panic attack, I can beat this,_ she told herself over and over. She forced herself to control her breathing. In, out. In, out. Slower. Slow it down.

 _Someone's running at me_. Her heartbeat sped up.

Ellie forced her eyes closed. In, out. In, out.

 _Then_ _let them come._

In out, in out. She shrank against the wall.

 _The walls are trapping me._

 _No. I know the way out. This is just a panic attack. It's my screwed up mind trying to trick me. But_ I _control my mind._ Me.

Ellie opened her eyes. Her breathing had calmed, as had her heart. How long had she been sitting there? It felt simultaneously like hours and seconds. She looked at her watch, but focusing on it made her feel nauseous and dizzy, so she didn't bother.

She forced herself to smile. The walls shrank back from her back where they should be. The something running up at her faltered and retreated.

Her smile widened triumphantly. _I win._ A beetle blade on the wall across from her stared at her. _I won_.

"Take that, you Wicked shuckfaces," she snapped at it, picked up her sandwich, and defiantly continued eating.

—

WICKED had no idea what was happening to her.

Or, they _hadn't_ had any idea. At first. It wasn't _their_ doing.

At first, when Ellie's issue had started, they hadn't noticed. They'd only started noticing when she began sleepwalking and acting out her memories in her dreams. The knife incident in particular had caught their attention. This wasn't normal.

Scientists had begun to tap into her mind so they could see what she was seeing, and they had only become more and more disturbed. Her brain scans were increasingly abnormal. Dr. Paige, Thomas, and Teresa had been alerted, and had been monitoring Group A's Pandora closely ever since. All three had lost sleep over it. This wasn't supposed to be happening.

"It's the Killzone Monitor—it's malfunctioning and letting memories slip through. It… _seems_ to be affecting her brain patterns. It's already caused night terrors, sleep paralysis, and sleepwalking. If it gets further out of control, it may move on to panic attacks."

Dr. Paige leaned towards the screen, watching Newt follow the sleep-walking Ellie into the Deadheads, with angst written on his boyish face. Teresa watched emotions fight for control of her face.

"How do we fix it?" the older woman had demanded.

"We're working on it, ma'am," said one doctor.

Dr. Paige had gotten angry. She slammed her palm on the table and raised her voice. "I _know_ you're working on it, thank you, doctor. Work. Faster."

"This isn't a simple fix, Ava."

"But you are very clever, are you _not?"_ she barked back. "This is about more than just the possibility of her remembering something to get them out of the Maze. This is about _her_ , and her _purpose!_ How can she help the rest of the Glade if she's struggling to help even herself? We cannot let her lose hope, _Doctor_ , or the entire endeavor of putting her in the Glade will be rendered useless. Fix. This." And she stormed away.

Thomas, Teresa, and Jansen had been set to watch Ellie, and to inform Dr. Paige and the doctors working to fix her whenever something went wrong with her.

They'd had to inform quite a lot.

That day, Thomas and Teresa watched as Ellie fought off a panic attack, pressing their knuckles to their mouths as they watched her suffer.

"I can't watch this," Thomas said, turning away. Teresa couldn't turn away.

"Come on, come on," she whispered.

"I hate this," Thomas exploded in frustration. "Why do we have to watch this if we have no idea what can be done to help her?" He bit the inside of his cheek, relenting and turning back to watch the screen. "What if this happens to us? What if this happens to us and we're in Phase Two and we can't help each other?"

"It won't, Tom. This has literally _only_ ever happened to Ellie. And they'll probably fix it in the Killzone Monitors they put in us. Hey." Teresa paused until he looked at her. "They're gonna fix this, idiot. They're not gonna let this continue."

Thomas drew his hand across his mouth. "Yeah, well I'm still worried about her."

"I know. Me too."

Later that day, they abandoned the Observatory Room to answer the call to the room where the Killzone Doctors were working on fixing Ellie's condition. Dr. Paige and Jansen were already there.

"It's a malfunction in one of these parts of the Killzone Monitor," Dr. Kent was saying, pointing at a blown up digital blueprint of the tiny devices. "It's difficult to pinpoint it remotely. We think a wire's been damaged in this area and is sending charges into her brain, which is what's causing the panic attacks, muscle atonia defects, and night terrors. The charges are _supposed_ to be fueling the Memory Block, which is why her memories are coming back."

"And the migraines that come with the memories coming back?" Dr. Paige asked, lips pursed.

"We think it's because of the rush of her brain trying so hard to recover her past, but it could be because the K.M. tries to block the memory _again_ …"

"Fine, but how can it be fixed?" Jansen was leaning on the back of a chair, concentrating on the most recent scans from Ellie's brain. Thomas had already been frowning, but it intensified ever so slightly. Jansen only cared about the teenagers as experiment subjects. Now that one of them was going wrong, he deigned to show concern. Jansen had never liked any of them. The Rat Man, as Minho had dubbed him as a child, looked up at Dr. Kent after a pause. " _Can_ it be fixed?"

Dr. Kent sighed deeply and sat down heavily in his swivel chair, massaging his forehead.

" _Can it be fixed,_ Doctor?" Dr. Paige reinforced Jansen's question.

Dr. Kent made a frustrated gesture with his hand. "Not from here. It's physical damage, not a software malfunction. She's been hit in the head too many times—by Edward, by the Griever. When she fell down the stairs once. We'd need to be able to perform surgery on her and fix it manually."

"Then the beetle blades can do it," Teresa said as if there were no point discussing it, so why were they standing around, _discussing it_?

"We considered that, Teresa, but as you know, beetle blades aren't perfect, and they're not exactly small enough to fit in her head, either."

"And Newt's been looking out for her. He would notice a bunch of beetle blades crawling all over her at night, and if we tried to move her somewhere else, he'd notice that, too." Dr. Kent nodded towards Jansen to acknowledge the man's point.

Dr. Paige waved Jansen's comment away decidedly. "Then forget about Newt. It doesn't matter if he sees, just fix Ellie."

Dr. Kent sighed again. "Then the beetle blades could do it, but we'd need time to engineer and manufacture some that could perform the surgery. Or carry the mechanisms that already do it."

"How long would you need?" Dr. Paige asked.

Dr. Kent made the frustrated hand gesture again. He had about two modes of expression: sighing, and hand gestures. Says some things about his job. "If we're being cautious about it? At least until Neil goes up. That's…two and a half weeks."

"And if we're not being cautious?"

"One and a half."

Dr. Paige considered. Her shoulders moved as she breathed like they always did when she had to make a tough decision. She glanced at Jansen, who met her eyes but gave her no help, as if explicitly trying to test her leadership, decision-making facilities.

 _What happens if we're not cautious and it fails_? Thomas asked Teresa mentally.

 _Then they screw her up even more, I guess,_ Teresa replied. _But we don't want her to suffer any more than she has to. I'm all for the one and a half week plan._

"One and a half weeks," Dr. Paige said finally. "Get on it."

—

During that time, Ellie had one more panic attack, two sleep-walking incidents, one memory-dream apart from those, and two night-terrors, but honestly, she was more grateful than she probably should've been that they weren't as bad as when she'd seen Edward. Every other night was a sleep paralysis night. She constantly felt under pressure and exhausted. Her eye sockets felt bruised, and Ben had noticed how dark the circles under her eyes were.

"You're not looking so hot, shankette," he said, sitting next to her and interrupting the stare into space she'd seemed so lost in.

Ellie gave a small grin automatically. He was her best friend, after all, and being around him was comforting. "Yeah."

"Not getting enough sleep?"

"Not even remotely."

"Why?"

Ellie shrugged, rubbing the scar in her shoulder. She sighed heavily. "I don't know."

Ben paused for a few seconds before grinning cheekily at her. "Stephen sometimes helps me sleep. Have you tried spooning with Newt?"

"No. I think I keep him awake enough with the night terrors."

" _Night terrors?"_

Ellie realized she'd slipped up, but just sighed and resigned herself to telling him. "I haven't really been having a good month."

" _Month_? How long have you been having night terrors? How long have you not been able to sleep?"

"Hardly since Finn's party."

"WHAT?! And you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't want to worry you!"

"So when we found you sleepwalking—?"

"A common occurrence recently. You only ever saw me just once."

Ben was pressing his knuckles to his head, moaning at how stupid he felt he'd been. "You never showed it. You always seemed happy."

"It's my job."

"But you could've told _me,"_ Ben pointed out, sounding as if he was seeking her reassurance that he was still her best friend.

"Honestly, Ben, I didn't want to hurt your bloody happiness," Ellie said genuinely. "If you were worried about me all the time, like Newt is, you and Stephen might not have—Well. You just worry about me being a Runner a lot, _anyway_. I didn't want to increase your amount of worry."

"Well, _now_ I'm shucking worried, Ellie! Good Lord. Is there _anything_ I can do?"

"No."

" _Mm_ hmm."

"Seriously. We think WICKED's doing this to me, and if they want it done, there'll be nothing you can do to help."

"You sound like you've given up."

Ellie looked at him with a smirk and a hint of the defiance he was familiar with coming back. "No way in hell, Benjamin. No way in hell."

Newt was awoken by tiny clicks, hardly even audible, but enough of a disturbance in the Glade's noises that he slowly opened his eyes. He closed them again and drifted off again with the soft, metallic tapping sounds a background noise in his tired mind.

It was when they stopped that he woke up fully. His back was to Ellie, and he'd begun the habit of checking on her whenever he woke up at night. He was relieved to find her in her sleeping bag, right where she'd been when he'd seen her last.

He was impressed by how stubbornly she was in continuing to insist to sleep, even though she knew it only ever brought her nightmares and sleepwalking and migraines and who knew what else she wasn't telling him about her condition. He felt a wave of affection for her. Even though she sometimes thought she did, she never quite gave up hope.

Something moved on her head, and Newt caught his breath. A beetle blade's red light shone into his eye as it crawled across her forehead. His eyes widened as he noticed at least three more around her head and neck. One was curled around, and covering, her ear, the red pinpoint aiming into it. One by her neck had a leg spiked into her neck like a needle. A third had its light aimed right at him.

His face contorted in anger. "Are you doing this to her?" he demanded, not bothering to be quiet, but Ellie didn't wake up.

—

A few doctors crossed their arms in offense. "No." _Excuse us._ _Rude._

 _—_

"Get off her!" Newt said, trying to shoo them off of his girlfriend. "You bloody _savages_!"

Two more beetle blades climbed onto Ellie so they could aim their red lights at him. One that was still on her forehead, one on her chest, and one on her ribs. A fourth joined the defensive stare from on her arm.

"Leave her alone!" Newt swiped his hand very close to one of them, and, just as it had with Henry, a part of the beetle blade shot off towards him.

It was a warning shot. It took a few layers of skin off a straight line in Newt's neck. He clapped his hand to it to check for blood.

Abruptly, ten other beetle blades exited the grass and crawled up to them, streaming past Newt. He pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to lessen the possibility that they might touch him and kill him.

Incredibly, in front of him on his sleeping bag, the ten beetle blades that had just shown up began to arrange themselves in patterns. Letters. The first was an _H._ Newt frowned in confusion.

 _E_. He kept glancing at the beetle blades on Ellie, the three on top of her, the one lightless one on her arm that was still standing rigid as if it was still staring at him.

 _L_. _P._

 _Help_? But the beetle blades continued to show Newt the message.

 _I. N. G_.

 _Helping?_

 _H. E. R._

 _Helping her._ The beetle blades were trying to fix her.

What the actual bloody hell? Newt stared at the last letter until the beetle blades scattered. Then he redirected his eyes to Ellie, no longer trying to get the silver centipedes off of her.

After a few minutes, the muscles in Ellie's jaw began to tense and relax spastically. A few seconds later, they stopped, and the beetle blade on her ear withdrew. Newt watched carefully, but Ellie's breathing seemed regular and deep. Had they fixed her? As the beetle blades scattered, he lay back down carefully, having been thoroughly confused by the whole ordeal. He stared up at the dark sky, wondering how he'd ever get to sleep.

He felt a sharp prick, and turned his head in alarm to see a beetle blade withdrawing its needle-like leg from his neck. He instantly felt drowsy, and the world spun gently as he began to fall asleep.

 _Oh._

 _So it was…a…_

 _sedative._

And he fell asleep.


	8. Cliff-Hanger

**A/N: Here we go...**

* * *

The lack of good sleep caught up to Ellie just a few days later, and then before she knew it her body seemed to be rebelling against her wishes. It started with chills, traveling down from her head and slithering around in her body even though it wasn't cold. Then came the stuffy nose, puffy eyes, and then she couldn't seem to stop coughing. Her limbs seemed to weaken, lose their strength.

When she was confined to Clint's healthcare program, Minho got Abe, the Bricknicks' Keeper, to run her part of the Maze. He'd done it a few times before, but he was less than thrilled about having to cover for her.

Clint confined her to the Homestead to rest as soon as he found out. He had ears like a bat: Ellie coughed bloody _once_ from across the Glade and suddenly he appeared and dragged her to the makeshift hospital.

"I've been stuck in this bloody bed one too many times," she complained to her friends the second night she was there.

"At least you never had any broken bones," Newt told her. "Now eat your sandwich."

"Yes, _Mom_."

"Momma Newt is feeding her young," Minho commentated, as if he were the narrator in some nature documentary. "Watch as this majestic creature cares for her—" He was cut off by Newt throwing a damp washcloth at his head. It smacked directly into his face with a comical slapping sound. " _Ow."_

"You're lucky it wasn't this sandwich, mate," Newt said.

"More like _un_ lucky," Stephen said. "Are you kidding? Food fight!" He stood, gripping his sandwich like a frisbee. He seemed like he was about to let it fly when Clint opened the door and entered.

"What are you doing?!" he demanded at once. "What the shuck, Stephen? She's supposed to be healing."

"Laughter's the best medicine," Finn leapt to Stephen's defense.

"I'm not laughing," Ellie said.

" _Look_ at her!" Stephen cried melodramatically, completely ignoring her. "She needs a miracle to save her decline from health! The miracle of laughter! 'Tis not an easy task to take, but I have sacrificed myself!"

It was Minho's turn to throw the washcloth at Stephen.

"Don't throw that," Clint said, snatching it from Stephen before he could throw it back. "I swear. You _all_ act like _children_." He handed the washcloth to Ellie, indicating she should keep it pressed to her forehead.

"We are."

"You're _not_. You're adults."

"How _dare_ you, _sir_?!" Ben said, mockingly offended.

Clint threw his hands up. "Fine! Fine, I'm leaving! Ellie, eat your food. Keep your strength up."

"I am, I am."

And then Clint left, shaking his head.

"If you don't want that, Ellie," Frankie offered, "I'll eat it."

"Ok, you can have this half."

"Don't you dare," Newt threatened.

"Calm down, Salamander. It's just one half. I'm not hungry anyway; feel lucky I'm eating as much as I am."

"I'll feel lucky when I don't have to worry about you anymore."

"How roles have reversed," Ellie smirked, and handed Frankie half of the sandwich anyway.

Minho gasped melodramatically as if to imitate Newt. "You go to your room, young lady."

Which was something she remembered Marie saying to her, in the same way; to make fun of her father.

Ellie tried not to let the smile slip from her face too quickly (she didn't want to offend him), but the mirth abandoned her. Luckily, no one noticed, though as her fallen face persevered, she thought it best to cover it up somehow. A fit of coughing obligingly burst from her lungs.

"Girl, you need to get better," Alex told her.

"Yes, thank you Alex, I'm aware," Ellie responded. "How many days until the new Greenbean?"

"Four," Newt said.

"Pshah," Finn smirked. "Plenty of time. So long as you don't cough your lungs up or _explode_ or something before then."

Ellie gave a short laugh. "What a way to go. I guess you could say it would be a grand… _Finn_ ale."

Groans.

—

Later, at night, Newt sat on the foot of the bed at her insistence that he keep a safe distance. She'd spent most of the day in fitful naps, and the rest of the day coughing up mucus. He would normally have squeezed right next to her on the bed, and where he had once been conscious of how close they were, he was now conscious of the distance.

"No more memories have come back, right?"

Ellie shook her head. "Nope. Guess those beetle blades really were helping."

"Yeah. Good that."

"I did tell you about the time you were riding a bike and face-planted into a puddle, right?"

Newt laughed. "Please, spare me."

"It was raining, and you were wearing this bright red rain jacket that was _way_ too big for you—"

"Please don't."

"I was watching from my window and you just rode past my house. You were going through the puddles on purpose, just to make big splashes, and at one point, you turned your bike really quickly to skid in a puddle. You just lost your balance and fell flat in the water." Ellie used her hands to mime it."

"I did not."

"You _did_ , and I laughed so hard—you have no idea."

Newt laughed, reaching up and messing his hair up with embarrassment. "Guess I was still a clumsy shank even when I was young."

"You're not clumsy."

"I might be a shank, though," Newt said, giving a grin that ended up slipping from his face.

"Edward said that about you once."

"Yeah, I remember."

There were a few moments of silence. Ellie leaned forward and put her hand on his, which was clutching the edge of the mattress. He glanced at her and turned his own hand over so their fingers could interlock. Ellie gave a laugh.

"God, I gotta get back out there."

"Not until you feel better."

She shook her head. "I gotta get back out there, Salamander. I need to _do_ something."

"You've only been here three days.

"Yeah, and I've been inactive for too long. Get lazy, get sad."

Newt smiled in his judgmental, reassuring way, like _Are you serious?_ "Oh, please, you're not being lazy. You've been through a whole pile of _unbelievable_ klunk for a month, something that—that none of us could've dealt with like you did. You spent all that time suffering? You deserve a few days off."

Ellie sniffed. "Well, there is one good thing about sitting here all day. I guess." She reached forward and ruffled his hair. He laughed and pulled away as if scared for the wellbeing of his hairdo. "Your hair's getting longer."

He shrugged, "Yeah. Not exactly a hair stylist in the Glade, is there."

"I bet Minho'd help you out."

"Ha-ha. More like he'd screw with it so _his_ hair would look better."

"Yeah, that's probably right."

—

The next day passed, and Ellie got better. The following day, she went back out into the Maze. It was nerve-wracking for both her and Newt, but it turned out to be a quiet day. She made it back to the Glade quite intact, and perfectly thrilled to be active again.

As she got back into the Glade, she grabbed Newt's hand excitedly. "I remembered a new song!" she told him excitedly. In the last month she'd been reusing songs she'd remembered from before it was painful. The new songs she'd found were all accompanied by the horrible migraines and memory spasms. The fact that this time, she was happy, made him smile. "And I'm going to teach it to you," she finished.

"I don't bloody sing, that's your job," Newt said, interlocking their fingers.

"Yes well, you can just slim yourself, Salamander, and join me," Ellie said with a growing smile. "It's a duet."

"Fine," Newt agreed. "As long as I'm not singing it by myself."

"No, of course not," Ellie smirked as they walked to the Map Room. "I would never relinquish my monopoly on the music of the Glade."

"Can you sing it for me?"

Ellie hummed a few lines of it. "It's pretty simple. You and I just take turns on the first two verses, and then the last verse is us together."

"How'll I remember the words?"

"I'll bloody write them for you, Salamander, we're not going to do an entire choreographed showing of it."

"I'd be up for that."

"You can't dance—you'd hurt yourself, and I'm not having that."

"Right. And, are we performing this, or what?"

"Maybe. At one of the parties. Probably not this coming one—you won't have time to learn it."

"Okay, then count me in."

"Awesome! I'll see you at dinner?"

" _No_ , you _won't_ see me at dinner, because I definitely have so many other places to go to entertain myself."

"See you, then, Salamander."

—

The next day, Ellie's instinctive happiness upon seeing Newt was ruined by his _I'm about to deliver bad news and I really don't want to_ face. This was the day that Minho had stayed in the Glade to have Nick call a Gathering. He was going to make his case that there ought to be eight Runners total. Something had clearly gone wrong. Newt was antsy, twitchy, as if he would have bolted if Ellie hadn't showed.

"What happened?" she asked, without him even having to say something. They instantly started hurrying towards the Homestead.

"It's Frankie."

"What happened to him? Is he okay?"

"He stepped on a nail when he was going to the Gathering. It's completely imbedded in his foot. Clint and Jeff are trying to pull it out."

Ellie covered her mouth.

"Do you want to go see him?" Newt asked. Ellie could only nod. She remembered having to get shots for—what was it—Tetanus? In case she stepped on a rusty nail. Had Frankie had the same shots?

—

Ellie wished she hadn't come. She and Newt rushed in to the Builders surrounding Frankie's bed. Jeff and Clint were positioned at the foot of the bed. Clint, holding down Frankie's leg; Jeff, holding pliers. Ellie pushed to Frankie's side. His face was white, screwed up with pain. One hand clutched the side of the bed, white-knuckled, and the other was clutching Alex's hand. Ellie directed her eyes to the top of Frankie's shoe, where the sharp tip of a long nail was receding agonizingly slowly, disappearing into a damp circle of dark red fabric.

Her breath caught in her throat and her mind threw her back into the Maze, coughing blood onto the rock floor. She shuddered and jolted as she remembered the Griever's spike going all the way through her shoulder. Newt put a hand on her shoulder; partially to keep her upright, partially to comfort her. Ellie put her hand on his.

Nick, Alby, and Fred appeared in the doorway, rushing in.

"Frankie!" Nick gasped in concern.

"Shuck, man," Alby said, brow furrowing.

"We came as soon as we heard," Nick said, starting towards Frankie's head. Jeff held him back.

"Nick, can I get some help, here?"

Nick glanced up at Frankie and then back at Jeff, his eyes traveling down to where Jeff was holding pliers clenched around the flat head of a large nail. Nick looked at Jeff doubtfully.

"You're stronger than me," Jeff prompted seriously.

"Yeah," Nick agreed.

"Hold him," Clint commanded, and Alby, Alex, Ben, Stephen, and Dave spread around the bed to put pressure on him. Ellie, Newt, Gally, and Fred stood back.

"G—Ohhh, shuck, this is gonna hurt—" Frankie exhaled, eyes still scrunched shut.

"Yep," Jeff and Clint chorused. Jeff finished, "Try to stay still."

"Alright. Ready? Go," Alby nodded at Nick, who steeled himself and yanked the pliers.

Frankie screamed. His back arched and his powerful muscles tensed, fighting against his Builders who struggled to hold him down. Alex put a hand on his head and pressed him down to the bed. The muscles in his neck strained and he continued to scream through his clenched teeth.

Nick hesitated for a moment to look at Jeff and Clint.

"Get it out, get it out!" Clint yelled at him. Nick redoubled his efforts and the nail began to slide out. Blood spurted onto his shirt. With a final yank, the nail exited the foot and the shoe. Nick jolted backwards, and Frankie's struggling instantaneously became limp and hopeless, more like he was just sleeping restlessly, groaning in agony.

Clint took charge rapidly, descending on the blood-soaked shoe. "Get the shoe off him, get it off," he demanded, and Jeff helped him loose the laces and pull it off. "The sock, too." The fabric was peeled off the open wound, sticky and soaked with blood.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Minho had entered the room, and was yelling, "What the shuck, what the _shuck_?!"

"Bandages!" Jeff yelled, and the Builders looked around frantically, and would have descended into a panic had it not been for Fred. Fred handed the roll of bandages to Clint, who began to wrap it tightly. Blood soaked through each layer almost instantly, but Clint continued wrapping with stoic determination.

"Come on, come on, come on," Fred was muttering under his breath, subtly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking like he was ready to sprint at any second.

Finally, the whole ordeal was over, and everyone stood back, shrinking away from Frankie as if he were a bomb that were going to explode, assuming various positions of stress and anguish. Frankie, still pale, looking like he might faint, and now perspiring heavily, slowly propped himself up to look at his foot.

"Well, Newt," he offered a weak laugh. "Looks like you won't be the only Glader who's got a limp." Then he let himself fall back and stared at the ceiling. "Shuck." He winced and his hands raised to massage his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

"Y'alright, Frankfurter?" Alex came forward, putting a hand on Frankie's shoulder.

"No!" the injured boy grunted, not taking his hands away from his face.

"Right, Minho, we're going to have to reschedule that Gathering," Nick said. Minho nodded, still staring at Frankie's foot. He, as a Runner, couldn't imagine anything worse than Frankie's fate.

"Wait," Frankie said, ever the loyal friend. "Have the Gathering. I vote for Minho's plan."

"Frankie—"

"Seriously, Frankfurter," Minho said. "We can wait for you to get better. We wouldn't want you to miss the _amazing fun celebration_ that is a Gathering."

Frankie ignored Minho and spoke to Nick. "Look, Nick, if representation means all the world to you, then have Gally go represent me at the Gathering. Don't postpone because of stupid ole me, dumb enough not to look where the shuck I'm stepping."

Attention turned solely to Nick. Gally looked nervous, but the Builders and everyone seemed ready to back Frankie's decisions.

Nick shook his head and folded his arms. "Fine. We'll have the shuck Gathering if you like. But you're making me feel like a heartless shank."

"You're not," Frankie grunted, sitting up again. "Seriously, go ahead. I'd feel bad if you had to wait for me." He swallowed, still speaking through heavy breaths. "Go on, it's fine."

Nick hesitated again, but ended up nodding and offering Frankie a rare grin. "Alright then." He continued to nod reluctantly, and shrugged as he made his way out of the room.

As Nick left, there was a collective exhale.

"You want me to do what, now?" Gally demanded. "Go to a Gathering? No way. No way! I can't represent you, you're the Keeper!"

"You can," Frankie said. "And you will."

"You sure?" Minho asked. "I mean—"

"I'm sure."

" _Frankie_ , the kid's only been here five months," Newt reasoned. "Barely even that. You really think he's ready for being _you_ at a Gathering?"

"Stop blowing it out of proportion," Frankie said. "Gally's been here long enough. He knows everyone, he knows the ins and outs of being a Builder, he knows what I think about this. He'll be fine. Plus, Minho will be there."

"Which is not actually a comfort," Gally put in, mostly teasing. Minho smirked at him without amusement.

Clint spoke up next. "Shouldn't one of the other Builders go? One of the more experienced ones?"

"We've no interest in hanging out with a load of buzzkills for thirty minutes," Alex spoke up in defensive loyalty to his Keeper's decision.

"Still," Minho said. "Is Gally the best choice?"

"First of all," Ellie said, interrupting the coming argument. "Stop talking like you're giving up being Keeper. The rest of you, stop acting like he's going to die. And the lot of you, stop underestimating Gally."

The room went silent as all eyes swiveled to her. Ellie sighed, gesturing frustratedly with her hands. "It's _one_ Gathering, alright? Gally can take it. Frankie's the boss, he's the one who gets to choose. Not any of the rest of us. So stop making such drama out of it, I swear, I have never seen such a group of _teenagers_ before in my life."

"Wow, what a twist," Minho quipped. "We're all teenagers. I never would have suspected."

"The point is, Minho," Fred spoke up for once, frustration in his voice. "You're over-dramatizing this. Stop. Let Gally go. That's that. Let's be done with it." Fred walked out, leaving silence in his wake.

Frankie shrugged at Minho. "You've been told. Now go get your extra three Runners." Minho flipped his hair and walked out, doing his best to be stylish about his defeat.

Ellie put a hand on Gally's shoulder as he followed Minho out.

"You got this, kid," she said.

Gally grinned shyly. "Yeah, you said that already," he muttered. "But I don't think Minho likes me very much."

"Then he can bloody get over himself," Ellie responded frankly. "Yeah? Go on, then." She patted his shoulder again, roughly, like boys do when they're reassuring each other. Gally grinned and exited.

"Right," Clint took control again. "The rest of you. Out. Now. Let the man rest, alright? Go on." He shooed them all out.

"Good night, sleep tight, Frankfurter," Alex called back into the room as Clint closed the door. "Don't let the bed bugs bite!"

"You're a shank!" came Frankie's muffled response.

—

Ava Paige stood alone in her room, watching the screen. Her thumb was held to her lips, which were by themselves pressed tightly together with worry. Her eyebrows formed a crease between them as anguished eyes scanned the screen. Slowly, not taking her eyes from Frankie's now-sleeping form, she sat back in her desk chair. Her hand moved to cover the lower half of her face, not pressing hard, just covering what might be a quivering lip. Might be. She couldn't regret sending him up. It was not allowed. This was for the good of hundreds and thousands and millions of people still out there. Sacrifices had to be made.

Ava Paige repeated this to herself over and over until her eyes stopped watering, she nodded, bit her lip, and stood again.

There was work to be done.

—

The Greenbean sirens went off unnervingly early in the morning.

Oddly, Ellie's first unconscious instinct was to reach behind her and turn her alarm off. She laughed as she opened her eyes.

"Bloody hell!" Newt exclaimed over the racket, sitting up instantly, still bleary-eyed. "What the shuck?"

"They just _love_ keeping us on our toes, don't they, the shanks," Ellie said, rubbing her eyes. "I _swear_ to everything holy."

They helped each other get to their feet, still half asleep. The rest of the Gladers were getting to their feet frustratedly, throwing all of their colorful vocabulary around and directing it mostly (but not always) at the sirens.

Frypan, Sid, Joe, and Robert were the only ones not really affected. In fact, they came out of the kitchen to laugh at the awakening Gladers.

"Perks of being a cook, shanks!" Robert hollered over the sirens, and Frypan cuffed him in the back of his head.

"You've been here a month, Greenie," he admonished good-naturedly.

"Ahh," Ellie sighed, meanwhile, looking around proudly at the groaning group of adolescents she called friends. "Nothing bonds a group of teenagers more than being woken up early in the morning by obnoxious shucking sirens being blared into our ears."

Newt laughed. "I dunno if this counts as a bonding experience, El."

"Um, I think it definitely does, excuse you, Salamander." They smiled at each other, and absolutely loved how a smile lit the other's face up.

Minho yelled over to them, very obviously irritated to have been woken up a whole—Ellie checked her watch—a whole 10 minutes before his watch would've woken him up. "Ellie! _Please_ tell me you've got some siren puns to brighten this day!"

" _Do I_?" Ellie exclaimed in excitement. "I guess if they were fire alarms they would be— _Fire-ens._ "

"I said _brighten_ the day, Ellie!"

"I guess if they go off but a Greenbean doesn't show up they would be _lie-rens_."

Newt was, meanwhile, at the point where he took as much pleasure as Ellie did in the groans her puns caused. The phrase _Partners in crime_ came to mind as he noticed this.

Minho covered his ears. "Stop, you're making this worse!"

"Minho, you're going to make her cry-ren."

"Both of you are killing me. Slowly. Painfully."

"Searin', _Siren_ , Soarin', Sun," Ellie imitated a rhyme she could remember vaguely. Something to do with giants? Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum? "I smell the sound of someone _spoiling my fun_!" Then, she pretended to run off, acting afraid that Minho would chase her down.

He didn't. He just shook his head.

Meanwhile, Newt was frowning. "You _smell_ the _sound_?!"

Ellie shrugged and threw her hands up in comical exasperation. "I'm having an off-day, Salamander!"

Breakfast was spoiled by the sirens. All Frypan's hard work, only to be ruined by the annoying sirens. Ellie wasn't sure if it was technically possible for sounds to cancel out tastebuds, but that's what seemed to be happening.

While auto-piloting food into their mouths, the whole squad quizzed Minho and Gally on the proceedings of the Gathering. A cheer arose to rival the racket of the sirens as Minho said Nick had allowed him eight Runners. Gally and Minho both received a salvo of friendly pats on the back.

Ben slung an arm around Gally's neck. "How's your first Gathering, kid?"

Gally struggled to rid himself of Ben's brotherly friendliness. "Intense. Like the whole time I was thinking, 'I know what I'm gonna say, I got this, just think the words and say the things, I got this, I got this,' you know. Then Nick looked at me and Alby's like, glaring, like usual, and I com _plete_ ly blanked."

Minho spoke up, "He had quite the voice crack, didn't you, Gally?"

"I did not!"

Minho looked at everyone and nodded smugly, mouthing: "He did."

"Wow," Ellie said, sassing Minho in defense of Gally. " _Voice cracks_? Among _teenagers_? There's _no way_. How _completely_ and _utterly_ unexpected and hilarious."

" _I_ don't have voice-cracks," Minho said.

"I can remember at least ten different occasions off the top of my head during which you've had a voice crack," Newt told him frankly.

Fred, sitting by Ellie, muttered under his breath, "I can think of fifteen."

"Yeah, well, apart from those," Minho argued.

"Oh, _apart from that_?" Newt laughed. "Apart from those, never! You're practically a grown man."

"With a slightly higher voice," Ellie added.

"And slightly taller hair," Stephen teased.

"You _wish_ your hair as attractive as mine."

"Yeah, well, which one of us has a boyfriend?"

Everyone glanced around at each other and made their very own, patented _well, he's not wrong_ faces.

The Runners had plenty of time to get their gear on before the Box presented the Glade with a new face. The Greenbean's name was Neil. Redhead, green eyes, thin face, kind of scrawny, obviously younger than most of them. The kid almost refused to come out of the Box, but Ellie wasn't afraid to jump down into the Box and bodily lift him out so that Nick could talk to him. He had enough time that day to have the Tour on his first day, and it pleased Nick that they wouldn't have to waste any time. The Welcome almost went well, too, until Alby mentioned the Grievers too early, and Neil almost sprinted right into the Maze, because apparently he thought that the Grievers were _in_ the Glade and not the Maze. Fortunately, Ellie could practically run circles around him. His arms flailed too wildly to catch one of them, so she just hooked a foot around his ankle and tripped him easily.

"Sorry, kid, that's _my_ job, sprinting about like a madman in that bloody labyrinth," Ellie grinned as he rolled onto his back. She offered him a hand to help him up, and he stared at it suspiciously before accepting the offer.

Nick caught up to them a second later and whacked Neil upside the head. "Never do that again," he commanded, his voice raised. "Rule number one. _Never_ go into the Maze."

Ellie gave him a hearty pat on the back, one that almost pushed the kid over. "Sorry kid, I'm afraid you haven't made the greatest of first impressions on our leader here." She winked and smiled. "Don't worry, I'll reserve my judgement."

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Nick demanded of her moodily, glaring sternly.

Ellie pointed finger guns at him. "You're absolutely right, Nickname. I'll be off." Ellie made eye-contact with Newt (who was still among the cluster around the Box), gave a jaunty wave (a new Greenbean always made her happy), and turned to run off into the Maze.

—

Throughout that week, Fred was the only one who could really get close to Neil, and by the time of the party, the Greenie's confidence had been bolstered enough so that he actually talked. He didn't make a lot of jokes, but he was alright laughing at other people's. Ellie didn't really know him too well, but he joined their friend group. Gally was glad Minho got to pick on someone else.

The five Runners were all consulted to recruit another three quick-footed Gladers. Ellie vouched for Finn, who had only been in the Glade two months at the time.

"Perhaps not the most experienced…?"

But Minho was biased in favor of the quick-witted kid, and Finn was just curious enough not to turn the request down. Rick suggested Jack, a Slopper, who had been asking him about being a Runner. Owen wondered about Mark the Slicer, but he turned them down, saying he was perfectly fine where he was: _not_ getting eaten by Grievers.

"Griever's don't _eat_ you, shuckface. They _sting_ you."

"Answer's still no."

In general, Ellie would've disregarded any suggestion by Hank, but when he asked about Billy, the friendly Bagger she'd met her second day, she backed him up, much as Edward's image still haunted her.

Were their decisions biased? _Most definitely_. But just un-biased enough to provide them with decent Runners.

An update on the Map Room: Still infuriating and useless as all hell.

Frankie came out of the Homestead for the Greenbean Gala, as Ben had dubbed it unofficially. Hobbling tentatively to a picnic table, he spent the day as a judge in competitions or laughing at the Gladers' antics, accompanied almost constantly by Clint and Fred, who kept him from choking on water or food. Both optimistically assumed that the choking was caused by Frankie's laughing at the ongoing shenanigans.

Meanwhile, the Greenbean Gala was every bit as successful as it had been in past months. An intense competition of Freeze-tag was dominated primarily by the Runners. Runners _and Ben_ , that is, because Ellie and Minho would purposefully let him slip through their fingers just because he was their friend. In the end, though, Ellie tagged him right as he ran into Stephen, knocking both of them over. Then _,_ she didn't have to worry about either. They never missed a chance to be cute boyfriends together.

Ellie began to teach Newt the song she'd thought of. She gave him the sheet of lyrics that she'd written while decidedly _not_ trying to decipher the Maps, taught him the rhythm, and then the notes. He was a better singer than he admitted, especially when she rewarded him with a kiss every time he got it right.

The Glade went to sleep happy.

—

Clint started paying attention to Frankie's symptoms the next day. He had a fever, he had trouble swallowing. A pit dropped in the stomachs of the Med-jacks as they realized it hadn't been because he'd been laughing yesterday. All mirth had abandoned the Keeper of the Builders, yet he could barely even get water down his throat.

Newt, in the Gardens, watched as Jeff ran from the Homestead to retrieve Nick and Alby. A sense of impending dread dropping a pit into his stomach, he went to the building, brushing hair out of his eyes as he looked back to see if Zart noticed. He went up the stairs to the room Frankie was in and found Clint pressing fingers to the back of Frankie's jaw. Frankie was holding his jaw with one hand.

Clint glanced back at Newt but was too worried to bother reprimanding him. Newt almost asked what was happening, but as he was forming the words, Frankie's jaw jerked abruptly, forcing the boy's mouth open and the lower jaw a little to the left of proper alignment. Tears filled Frankie's eyes. Newt's gaze darkened as the realization struck him. He hadn't known what the nail might've done to Frankie. Was this an infection taking hold?

Nick, Alby, and Jeff showed up moments later.

"What's happening?" Nick gave Newt a brusque nod; Alby offered a half-grin. Jeff didn't even look at him.

Clint looked back, taking his fingers from Frankie's jaw and looking completely helpless. "Jaw spasms," he said. "And a fever. And he's having trouble swallowing."

Nick, Alby, and Newt exchanged worried glances.

"Do you know what it is?" Nick asked.

Clint stayed quiet for too long, afraid to answer. "No. I don't."

"What can you do for him?" Nick asked.

Another long pause. "I don't know."

Frankie's jaw spasmed again and Newt heard just the smallest noise of pain come from his lips. Nick noticed too. His stern face hardened, because in truth, the boy didn't know how to admit that he was scared. For the longest time, Nick couldn't say anything. Arms folded, his eyes flicked left and right as if he were searching on a page for a solution. He had none, and he absolutely _hated_ the feeling of being useless.

Being leader had been a more important job during the Gladers' first months. They'd needed a leader more. Someone to look to, someone to reassure them, someone to tell them what needed to be done. Nick had stepped up in a major way, then, and the original Gladers knew it. But now, recently, the Glade ran like clockwork. Everyone knew their jobs, everyone knew how to do them.

When Ellie had arrived in the Glade, Nick had originally feared that it was her mission to provoke mutiny, to tear the Gladers apart. When she'd shown nothing but loyalty to him, he'd felt relieved. Not because he was a power-hungry dictator, but because the Gladers' situation didn't need any of the chaos that a leadership dispute would bring. And Nick legitimately cared about his Gladers.

Nick didn't know how many of the Gladers understood this. The vast majority of them knew perfectly well that Nick was the best leader they could've asked for. The ones who didn't just assumed that there was no other choice.

But still, every unanswered question Nick encountered he imagined a blow being dealt to the group's faith in him.

Unanswered questions like _this_.

Nick looked up decisively. "Don't tell anyone. No one is allowed to see him until this can be sorted out. Clint, send a request down the Box and see if the Creators will tell us what we can do for him."

"And if they don't give us an answer?" Alby asked pessimistically, leaning against a wall and folding his arms.

Nick whirled to face Alby. "It's worth a shuck try," he affirmed, and though his face betrayed little emotion, his eyes radiated anger. He stared Alby down until the other boy dropped his gaze and nodded.

"Hold on," Newt spoke up, coming forward. "'Don't tell anyone'?"

"We can't afford panic," Nick said, meeting Newt's eyes.

"I get that, Nick," Newt argued. "But his _friends_ —" He stopped himself from saying 'family,' but only barely. "His Builders, Minho, Ellie. You're not going to let _anyone_ see him? They'll be worried out of their minds."

"They won't know how bad it gets," Nick said, glancing to Frankie as another spasm shook his jaw.

"They'll know it's bad enough to _quarantine_ him."

"I don't like it, either, Newt," Clint said from Frankie's side. "But until we can at least figure out what this is…" Jeff looked up, quietly nodding his agreement.

"Please," Frankie whispered, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat, and spoke more clearly. "Guys, at least let me see my friends." He had more to say, but his jaw spasmed again and silenced him.

Clint almost scoffed at the suggestion and wasted no time in reprimanding Frankie. "You're in no shape to mingle. Look at you!"

"Well, until you know what to do for him, where's the harm?" Newt spoke on Frankie's behalf, since he couldn't argue for himself. Frankie looked at him gratefully. "You don't know whether he needs rest, or exercise, or a massage, or… I dunno, _acupuncture_ , you don't know anything on how to fix this, so just let him spend some bloody _time_ with his friends."

"If I'm gonna die, I don't want to be alone," Frankie managed, patching together a makeshift grin that couldn't hide preparatory sadness in his eyes.

"You won't die," Clint and Newt chorused.

"It will pass, you just gotta hang in there," Clint reassured him.

"Yeah, well, even so," Frankie continued. "I still want to be able to be with my friends."

Nick looked away frustratedly. "Fine. But no one is to spread rumors." This command was met with solemn nodding from all present.

Alby touched Nick's arm, turning him towards the door. "Rumors are gonna spread if you and I are both in here for too long. People have already noticed."

Nick nodded and exited without another word. Alby cast another glance into the room, meeting Newt's worried, frowning eyes. Then, he sighed angrily and left.

—

Someone was supposed to be with Frankie at all times. Clint, Jeff, Alby, and Nick were supposed to be the only ones originally, but the Baggers began to volunteer to look after him. The three of them (three, now that Billy had become a Runner) really had nothing to do in recent days. They were all strictly instructed to run immediately to Clint if anything new developed.

His fever worsened—he was constantly sweating. In a haunted fever-dream one night he ripped off his shirt, tearing through the fabric. They kept a bucket of water next to him so that they could keep a damp cloth on his forehead. Not that it helped. Jaw spasms became more frequent, more violent, more painful. Sometimes when he was breathing, his diaphragm would convulse and force the air from his lungs as if he had been punched, leaving him gasping for breath for several seconds.

He tried not to complain. Complaints, he figured, could be reserved for people who could actually help resolve them.

After another week, Frankie really was quarantined:

Nick had been with him in the night, quietly sitting in the corner, brooding. Abruptly, Frankie's back arched, throwing his stomach up. Frankie, who had been drifting off, woke up with a yell. He panicked and began to squirm, hoping he could return his back muscles to a normal position.

Nick stood, his eyes widening with alarm.

"I'll get Clint, I'll be right back," he said, out the door before Frankie could even think of a response. It was so incredibly painful—air abandoned his lungs and whatever infection it was that held him hostage refused to let him breathe. One arm's muscles tensed and relaxed in a terrifying rhythm, making his limb twitch like he was having a seizure.

As if he weren't badly-off enough, the infection pulled on another string of the marionette Frankie, and his jaw spasms began again. Tears sprung from Frankie's eyes. He was on his side, so one stream slid across the bridge of his nose to mingle with tears from the other eye. _This_ was how he was to die? Suffocation? From a disease the Gladers couldn't remember?

Frankie began to black out.

The muted noise of the door slamming open.

Black and gray and white, blurry faces entering his peripheral vision.

Where had the color gone?

Muffled friends' voices calling his useless shuck name, like it could revive him.

"Frankie?"

" _Frankie!"_

 _—_

Eleven friends sat at a picnic table. Plus one, minus one.

Neil was a sorry substitute for Frankie.

Light was fading. Another day in the life and death of the Glade. Sweat, tears, and blood fertilized the soil so that the Glade could eat. Sorry; so that the live ones could eat. The dead ones were out of luck.

The dead ones.

Eight dead kids. Most original Gladers. One Greenie who couldn't take it.

Memorial for James.

Henry.

Memorial for Edward.

Ellie was thinking about Frankie, and the first few days that she'd known him. Her first impression came back to her. She'd thought, _I really don't like his hair._ Frankie, who had noticed that Ellie could sing, who had exaggerated the length of time that the Gladers had been there to mess with her, who had taught her to be a Builder, who had spoken out of turn for her at a Gathering.

It hadn't hit Ellie until the day before that Frankie might've died.

She was too hopeful, and she knew it. But her heart refused to believe that Frankie might die. Even with the scare from the night before.

 _That's called denial, dear_. The voice of her father. Explaining why a family friend had gotten so angry when Ellie had asked a question. Her father had been equally furious that this person had yelled at his daughter. Ellie couldn't remember what her question had been, or who it had been to, or what the circumstances had been.

"Ellie?"

Newt's voice jolted her out of her thoughts. How many times had he called her?

Judging by his face, one too many. His huge, dark, puppy dog eyes looked into hers. That's the sight that Ellie wanted to keep of him. Newt's face, solemn, but not sad. Worried, but not afraid. He frowned too much. He was more beautiful when he smiled.

Ellie supposed a smile would be too much to ask from their world. This, right now, calm-before-storm look was all she really needed to ask for. It was more comforting than she let on.

"Ellie?" He touched her hand.

"Yeah? Sorry." She spoke softly, unwilling to desecrate the quiet veil that they'd spread over the table in Frankie's absence.

"You alright? I mean, relatively."

"Better than I think I probably should be. What about you?"

"Likewise."

They waited a while, relishing each others' quiet, reassuring presence.

"Do you think he'll die?" Newt asked.

Ellie didn't know. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't _want_ to know. She was afraid of knowing. "No," she said, finally. "I can't believe he's going to die. But I can't say that with any bloody surety because I don't—"

She broke off. Composed herself. Continued. "I can't believe he's going to die because I don't _want_ to believe he'll die."

"He doesn't deserve to die," Gally spoke up, not looking at anyone.

"But we have to be prepared for if…" Fred began his customary wise words, usually too quiet for anyone to hear, but broke off when he realized it was quiet enough for them all to hear.

 _Be prepared for If._

"I don't want to be prepared," Ben whispered. Stephen slipped his hand into Ben's, but Ben twisted it away and stood up, his food untouched. Without another word, he walked away. Stephen stood to follow, his face betraying hurt and concern. Alex put a hand on his arm and pulled him back down.

"Just give him some time."

Stephen was now on the verge of tears, so he just nodded.

Ellie's heart broke for him.

What had happened to her friends? Her Glade? Her Hope? The one reason she was sent into the Glade. To help them hope. Help them live, help them be happy, help them believe that there were better things to come. The future couldn't all be bad. They would live, they would get out, they could be _normal_ teenagers, together.

Help them hope.

She was failing.

—

Ben was in the Deadheads, sitting curled against a tree, running through scenarios. There was just one scenario, really: What if Frankie died? What if Frankie died, and the friend group split into pieces? He'd already done his part, like an idiot, and pushed Stephen away. A pit dropped in his stomach. Ben had seen Stephen's face, right before he'd turned away. How hurt he was. Some place imbedded deep in his heart ached for everything he might lose.

Footsteps came up behind him, but Ben didn't look. Was it Stephen? Even if it was, he couldn't face him now.

"Ben," Ellie's voice said.

"Go away," he replied.

"Yyyeeeahhh. No." He heard her sit against the tree. He was grateful, deep down, that she'd stayed. "Stephen's looking for you," she said.

"Why does he want to see me?"

"Because you're his boyfriend, and he loves you."

"I was a complete slinthead to him."

"Nonetheless."

Ben said nothing, and quietly hit his head once against the bark of the tree. Ellie noticed, but didn't say anything about it. She stayed quiet for a while, to let Ben know that he wasn't alone in the way he was feeling.

"Do you need to talk about it?" she asked. It had been too long since the last time they'd really, earnestly talked, as the best friends they were supposed to be. But Ben thought that if he talked now, he might cry.

"No," he said shortly, but there was no anger in it.

"Well I do."

Ben turned his head and looked at her from the corner of his eye. "What?"

"I need to talk. To someone. And I don't want to dump my emotional baggage on Newt. I think he deals with it enough anyway." She smiled softly thinking about how much she loved Newt. How much he must put up with from her.

Ben hesitated, and then turned around so that they were face to face.

"What's wrong?"

Ellie let her head lean on the tree, like her neck was tired of holding it up. "I'm failing, Ben."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember why I came here? To bring hope to the Glade? Since Henry and Edward, I thought…maybe I'm getting there. Maybe it's really working. Maybe not everything is hopeless, and now…" A tear traveled down her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it away. "Now, everything's breaking apart. Frankie might die. Everyone will spite me for delivering false hope."

"Ellie, no one is going to spite you. You've done the best you can."

"But it's not enough! Ben, I'm the only one we _know_ has been sent up for a specified reason. A message of hope, or whatever, a reason to live. _Whatever_ I am. Now, Frankie's going to die, and there's nothing I can do about it; why would they send me here if I can't do anything to preserve the hope. If the hope dies, then I'm _useless_. I'm a failure. I had one job, _one,_ and I can't do it! I'm failing."

Ben stayed quiet and waited for her tears to abate. Finally, she wiped them away.

"Hey," he said. "Weren't you the one who suffered for a month of panic attacks and night terrors and klunk? _You_ never gave up hope, right?"

"I came pretty close," Ellie sniffled.

"But you didn't. Ellie, people have died in the Glade before. You know that. You said it yourself, once, I think. We'll keep on keeping on. Gladers always do."

"This time will be different."

"How? How will it be different?"

"Because this time they really thought there was a chance."

"You're talking like Frankie's already dead," Ben argued. "Completely ignoring the chance that he'll live."

"It's a slim chance."

"Slim chances have turned out to be what happened in the past. There was a _slim chance_ that a girl would show up in the Glade. A slim chance that you'd get back to the Glade after you'd been stung. Think about if Frankie lives! Then the whole Glade will have hope. Not everyone has to die, Ellie."

"Thanks, Ben."

He grinned at her.

"Now," Ellie continued, a knowing smirk creeping onto her face, "I think you should go make up with your boyfriend, and possibly also make _out_ with your boyfriend."

"You're unbelievable."

—

"Hey."

"Hey, Ben." Hopefully. A pause, and then, "Are you still mad at me?"

"I wasn't mad at you."

"It seemed like you were."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's okay. You were upset, I get it."

"But I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

" _Yeah_ , maybe not."

A laugh. "So…we're good?"

"Yeah."

"If it's all the same to you…I'll hold your hand now."

—

Frankie did not improve. The quarantine implanted worry in the hearts of the Gladers, which festered and spread. Ellie kept doing her best to improve the mood. She picked up her guitar and began to practice the song she and Newt planned to sing. The way it was supposed to go was Newt would sing a verse, and then she would sing a verse, and then they would both sing together.

Newt wasn't secure in his singing, although he really did have a nice singing voice, so Ellie sang with him on his verse:

 _Save me; I'm drowning so deep in the darkness_

 _I'm waiting for your touch to stop this_

 _There's smoke blinding us with goodbyes, and I_

 _Keep Hope,_

 _Cause this feeling's different and I know_

 _I've staggered so long that it can't go_

 _Alleviate me, I'll be fine in time._

 _—_

Music was, by this time, associated with cheer in the Glade.

WICKED watched with interest as the song gradually lifted the mood of the Gladers. Even considering everything that was happening, the Gladers involuntarily smiled when Ellie began to play. The guitar was usually reserved for the Greenbean Galas.

Even Frankie, as his jaw spasmed, began to believe he would get better, or at least get used to living with it.

This optimism lasted a day.

The next day, its remnants prevented full-on pessimism.

The day after, everyone was worried and afraid.

Gally pulled Ellie aside at dinner, tears in his eyes. He had been to see Frankie, using the excuse that he needed 'architectural advice.'

"Ellie—I know you have some memories of…Before…don't you?"

"Yeah," Ellie nodded solemnly.

"Please, I know it's unlikely, but…please. _Anything_ about how to heal him."

"I'm sorry, Gally," she said. "There's nothing."

" _Please_!" he begged. "Try to remember something. You're the only one who might."

"Gally—my memories are of childhood. And they're scattered, fragmented beyond bloody belief. It's like I've been shown separate scenes, unrelated scenes, from a show I haven't seen. Yeah, some things I can infer about the gaps between one or two of them. But even then, I don't think I've ever seen this before."

Gally was silent, looking away. Hiding a tear on the cheek opposite of Ellie.

"I'm sorry," she said again. She hugged him, thinking he would try to resist. But he didn't. He just stood, motionless, until she went away.

—

Ellie, Minho, and rest of the Runners got ready in silence. Strapping on backpacks, running shoes, making sure water bottles and lunches were secure. The three new Runners were still running with mentors. Ellie ran with Finn today.

The Doors were about to open. Ellie nudged Finn to let him know they were leaving, and he nodded, getting up to follow her.

They were walking to their door, Ellie's stomach just as tense as it had been since Frankie's quarantine.

"Ellie," Finn said with alarm, abruptly. He tugged on her arm until she looked, and he pointed to the West Door.

Gally was standing there, waiting for the doors to open. Even as Ellie spotted him, the Doors began to grind open. Gally stepped closer to the Maze.

"GALLY!" Ellie screamed, and sprinted towards him.

He didn't hear her.

Ellie closed the distance from where they had been to where Gally was in record time, but she wasn't quite fast enough to stop him. He slipped through the gap in the doors and disappeared from sight. Heart pounding with worry, feet flying over the grass, adrenaline racing, not fast enough, not fast enough no matter how fast she pushed herself. She should have, but she didn't call for Nick; she didn't want to get Gally in trouble. Not without knowing what he was doing and why.

 _Friends are real important in this place_ …Was Ellie about to lose one? What was he thinking?! Why would he go into the Maze? It was suicide! Her brain raced alongside her and ran through scenarios of losing Gally in the Maze. Making a wrong turn because she couldn't track him down. Him not making it back before the Doors closed. Him being stung and killed and taken by the Grievers. His body never being found.

She didn't look back to see if Finn was following her. The gap into the Maze was wide enough by the time Ellie got there that she didn't have to slow down. She flew through and saw Gally disappear to a corridor to the left. Her mind almost didn't register how quickly she got there.

She was right on Gally's heels in three seconds, and then she tackled him. Both of them crashed to the rock floor and tumbled for a few feet. Ellie was up in a second, heaving Gally to his feet and slamming him against the wall.

"What the _shuck_ , Gally?!" she screamed at him.

"Get off of me!" he yelled back, writhing. She put her forearm up to his neck, consumed by the rage of an intensely worried friend and mentor.

"What the _bloody shuck_ were you thinking, slinthead?!"

Gally tried to knee her in the stomach but she dodged and used the momentum from that movement to throw Gally on the ground.

" _Answer me_!" she roared, twisting his arm behind his back before he could scramble away. "You run into the Maze like a complete shucking _idiot_ , not knowing _where_ to go or _how_ to get back, or what bloody Grievers look like, or what the time is, or when you need to start trying to find your way back—" Gally kicked out at her knee but it wasn't strong enough to cause serious damage. Ellie yanked on his arm and heaved him up.

"Do you have any idea what it would be like for us to _lose_ you in here?!" she yelled into his face, a white-knuckled grip on his shoulders holding him still.

"I imagine it'd be _exactly_ like how it _will_ be when we lose Frankie in _there_!" Gally exploded, violently throwing her hands off of his shoulders.

With this, it grew abruptly quiet, Ellie and Gally staring at each other with incredulous, tense, white-hot fury, fueled by worry and agony caused by the pain of a friend.

"How can you _think_ like that?" Ellie demanded, with something like disgust creeping into her voice.

" _Because_. _He's_. _Dying_!" Gally yelled at her, his voice raw with emotion. "And you people can't do _anything_ about it!"

"And you think _you_ can?!"

" _Someone_ has to! But everyone's too shuck _scared_ of the Maze to try and get stung to remember _anything_ that can help. You're all willing to let him _die_ without even trying!"

They were almost circling each other now, like a stand-off between predators, searching for a weakness, ready to pounce at the first glimpse of one.

"What makes you think you even knew the _first thing_ about Tetanus?!" Ellie yelled, unable to believe how naive Gally was. "What makes you think, even if you did, that _that_ would be the shuck memory to come back to you?! How did you even expect to withstand a bloody Griever long enough to get back to the Glade?"

"I _have to try_!"

A clanking, whirring, pounding sound cut off Ellie's next retort. Gally was taking a breath to yell again, but she lunged forward and slapped a hand over his mouth, grabbing him and pulling him to the side. Gally made muffled yelling noises and tried to pull her hand off of his mouth.

"Shut _up_ , shank," Ellie hissed with an intensity that shut Gally up more effectively than anything else. Ellie looked around her and saw Finn standing, frightened of her, Gally, _and_ the oncoming noise. Ellie took her hand from Gally's face and pulled him back to where Finn was. Ellie's mind began to race again, flashing back to the stinger puncturing all the way through her shoulder. Automatically her hand went to the scar there as it began to throb. She could not see another Griever. She couldn't.

She had to.

Ahead of them, there were two corridors branching off to the right of the one they stood in. If they ran, would they lead it right to the Glade? They were one turn away from the Doors. They couldn't get there fast enough, even if it came from the furthest intersection.

Gally and Finn had gone white, staring in horror down the hallway. Ellie grabbed their shirts, and stood in front of them, forcing them to look at her.

"Finn, get Gally back to the Glade _now_. Do it. Tell Nick and Alby." _And Newt. Please_.

"But—"

" _Enough_ , Gally," Ellie commanded with harsh, frustrated sternness. But their eyes suddenly locked on to something behind her. She turned her head, knowing what she would see.

From the furthest passage from them emerged a Griever.

Just as grotesque as the one she had seen before, just as huge, just as monstrous. Its metal legs slammed into the ground.

Ellie shoved Finn and Gally back towards the Glade as it turned its head to see them.

"GO!" she screamed, as the Griever let out a roar and maneuvered itself into the passage. It charged them, and _then_ , Finn and Gally fled.

Ellie sprinted towards the creature. If this didn't work, she was mincemeat. She ran as fast as she possibly could. The distance between them closed at lightning speed.

A prayer: _Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall._

Ellie made the sharpest, fastest turn of her life and sprinted to the right before the Griever could catch her. She heard it skid behind her as it tried to turn to give chase. She didn't look back. Looking back was suicide. She just ran as fast as she could. Lead it away.

The Cliff!

The thought popped into her mind as a last grasp for hope, the slim possibility of survival. A place she had never been to herself, but had been told about. Minho never saw the point in running there; the route never changed. Ellie hoped she could remember the way.

Her mind searched the hours she had spent searching the Maps.

 _"What's this place?"_

 _"That? That's the Cliff."_

 _"What is it, though, Salamander, the name doesn't really help all that much."_

 _"Oh, yeah, take a wild bloody guess as to what the Cliff is."_

 _"I dunno, does a mountain sprout out of the Maze?"_

 _"Nah, it's just a big drop-off. Straight down. Into the abyss. It's the only place in the Maze for which the route is always the same."_

 _"Maybe I should drop by sometime."_

 _"Yeah, and just dump your garbage off the edge."_

 _"All right, off I go then."_

 _"No, wait—"_

That day was a million years ago now, and close to forgotten due to present circumstances.

The Griever behind her raced behind her, vision and thought consumed by the creature it was running down. It's mechanisms propelled its bulk after her, a huge, horrifying monster chasing its tiny, slim prey. It clumsily made the turns, slamming into walls and half climbing them to slam into the ground again and push itself even faster.

Ellie lost count of how many turns she'd made. Somehow, by some miracle, she hadn't run into a dead-end. One more left, and suddenly the Cliff was in sight. It was an odd sight. The Maze just seemed to stop, to end in a vertical drop into the gray mist below and around.

The Griever was gaining on her. Even without looking back she could tell that her energy was waning and the Griever's dogged stubbornness was only growing.

With a last burst of effort, Ellie accelerated towards the Cliff. Heart pounding. Her plan may not work. But she had nothing else except to jump.

And she was not willing to leave her Glade.

Her friends.

Or her boyfriend.

A few feet from the edge, she let out a yell, twisted, and dropped to the ground. She curled into the fetal position and grabbed a nearby vine that had spread onto the ground from the walls. Half a second later, a massive force ran into her side, almost trampling her. A second force kicked her face, making her see stars. The Griever above her screeched as it tried to stop but instead skidded over the rock with the scream of metal on stone. It tripped over the curled figure of Ellie, and its full body overbalanced, and it fell and rolled just far enough to tip it over the edge.

Ellie scrambled to her feet, backing away from where two of the Griever's mechanical legs held onto the edge just barely. Her breathing came in gasps and sweat coursed down her face and body. Her legs were weak, barely able to hold her up. As she shifted her weight, the muscles in her calves trembled and shuddered. Some blood ran down her face from the bridge of her nose and she could already feel bruises forming on her stomach and eyes. Her left shoulder was scratched and red from sliding on the floor.

One of the Griever's legs scraped along the rock shortly as it tried to pull itself up. Breathing heavily, Ellie turned and ran back towards the Glade.

—

She made a wrong turn, but fixed her mistake quickly, beginning to worry about getting back in time. What had become of Finn and Gally? Did they tell Nick? Or had Gally continued with his shank suicide plan of getting stung for Frankie's sake. Did Newt know? Was he going out of his mind with fear? Was Ben trying to calm him down?

Was anyone looking for her?

Her exhausted mind wandered, causing her to stumble a few times. Her muscles ached, but still she pushed herself back to the Glade. Just five more turns. She thought. Home stretch. Just go a little faster. The day was only half done.

As she turned a corner she ran smack into someone else. They both screamed from surprise and fell together. Ellie panicked for a millisecond, thinking (illogically) that it was another Griever. She began to push herself away before realizing she was pushing herself away from—

"Salamander?!"

Who sat up quickly and grabbed her, pulling her into an embrace right there on the Maze floor. Never had anything felt so good in her life. Ellie's heart felt like it was going to explode.

"You shank," he gasped in relief, completely disregarding how sweaty and gross she was. He'd thought he would never get to hold her again. "I was so worried."

" _You_ were worried?!" Ellie demanded breathlessly. "Mate, I just ran from a Griever at top speed for thirty minutes. I was literally about to collapse."

Newt pulled his head off her shoulder, but not from the hug, and he kissed her. Her stomach dipped like she was riding a rollercoaster and she kissed him back. Again, not helping her pounding heart. But not unpleasant, either.

Eventually they pulled away, resting their foreheads together.

"We need to get back. You need rest. And the others are still out here looking for you."

"They're _what_?"

"We can't just _lose_ our beautiful Hope Sign. We were worried."

Ellie touched her nose to his, smiling. "Some, more than others."

"Maybe so. Come on, let's get back."

"Good idea."


	9. Would Wish Me One More Day to Stay

**AN: Sorry I haven't updated in quite a while. Some new things surfaced that I had to deal with, and also this chapter was something else to write. Anyway, despite the wait, I hope you like it. Also, the song at the end is "The Parting Glass" by the Wailin' Jennys**

 **Edit 7/30/18: Trigger Warnings - Character Death**

* * *

Ellie was swamped by Gladers when she and Newt came back through the Door.

"All I wanted to bloody do was have a lie-down," she muttered to him. She was leaning heavily on him; her arm around his shoulder, and his arm around her waist, ensuring she wouldn't slip to the ground. Her muscles were worn and shaky. Her legs trembled and wobbled against her will when she put too much weight on them. A pack of Gladers were gathered at the Door, cheering them when they came into view.

Nick and Alby were at the front. Ben and Stephen just next to them, and the rest of her close friends crowded right behind.

"Ellie!" Ben yelled in excitement, running forwards a few steps into the Maze to tackle Ellie with a bear-hug. Newt let her stand by herself and she steadied herself on Ben's shoulders.

"We were so worried!" he said, shaking her shoulders. "What happened? Did you kill the Griever? How did you kill it? Or did you just escape, in which case, how did you do _that?_ "

"Woah, shut your face a moment," Ellie said. "Easy, mate. I'm about to collapse."

"Sorry," Ben apologized, still bouncing off the walls with energy released from the tension of when she had been MIA.

"Did Finn and Gally make it back okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, although Gally got the scolding of a lifetime. I don't know if you've ever truly seen Nick get really _mad_ , but holy—"

"Come on, now, Ben, can we get Ellie to someplace she can have a rest?"

"Yeah, sorry," Ben said, ushering them back into the Glade, where Nick glared at him.

"Try that again, kid," Nick reprimanded him for running into the Maze.

"Relax, Nickname," Ellie gasped. "He's fine. It was just a few steps."

Jeff was the next to come up to her, lightly touching her shoulder and nose. "Are you alright, Ellie? Are you hurt anywhere else? Were you stung?"

"Just bruises, but thank you, Jeff." Ellie couldn't seem to stop smiling; she was so relieved to see the Glade again. "I just need to lie down for a bit, I think I pushed myself a little too hard."

"Yeah, we can see that," he grinned, patting her on the back. "Glad you're back, shankette."

The rest of the Gladers—friends, family—crowded her, congratulating her and expressing their happiness that she was alive. Even Neil was surprised and smiling at her. Newt was by her side the whole time, supporting her. Literally.

"Look at you," he said fondly. "You're a hero!"

Ellie scanned the faces, smiling just to be seeing them at all.

"You escaped a Griever?!"

"Without even being stung?"

"How the shuck did you do that?"

"Ellie, you're a shucking legend!"

Her eyes lighted on Gally and her smile wavered noticeably. He was the only one not smiling, not moving. He looked guilty, subdued, and rueful as his eyes met hers. He was surrounded by the three Baggers. Will, Gordon, and Jackson, who all had their arms crossed. Will was smiling, though, which he almost never did. Ellie watched as Nick went up to the group.

She couldn't hear what was said, and soon enough they were blocked from her sight by the rest of the Gladers as Newt ushered her to her sleeping bag.

"A week in the Slammer," Nick said, still angry. Then, with disgust, "What the shuck were you thinking?"

"That I might _save_ Frankie," Gally spat back at him. "Someone _you_ don't seem to give a klunk about."

"What, save him by getting yourself killed?" Nick retorted, "Because of you, we nearly _lost_ Ellie. And then we would've lost two people. One of whom would have been entirely on _you."_

Gally knew that. He could still see the Griever emerge into sight, still remembered Ellie shoving him to safety, still remembered looking back and watching her sprint towards the Griever. Outmatched, getting smaller in his vision as the Griever only got bigger. Finn had needed to yank him around for him to really run away. He'd returned to the Glade sobbing, knowing, _knowing_ that it was his fault she was dead or dying. He owed her his life.

But Frankie was still dying.

He followed the Baggers to the Slammer without another word.

—

Frankie heard the cheers from inside the Homestead. No one had told him what had happened to Ellie. His jaw spasmed painfully, and he put a hand to it almost absentmindedly, almost resignedly, as he tried to figure out what was going on. His imagination was one of his only comforts recently.

But cheers meant good things. Cheers meant something happy had finally come to the Glade. Right?

He had been staring blankly at the room in front of him, but the next thing he knew, his eyes focused on the figure of Fred, having appeared out of nowhere without warning. As usual. Frankie jumped from surprise, and his jaw twitched again. He tightened his grip on it and raised his eyebrows as a greeting, since talking was too much of a risk.

"Hey, Frankie," Fred said. They hadn't seen each other in a while. Since he was quarantined a few days ago. It felt like a very long time, since they had been quite used to being around each other every day at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if not in between.

"Hey, Fred," Frankie said, unable to stop a smile of relief. He'd missed his friends.

"I figured everyone would be out there," Fred said. "It was a good time for me to sneak in."

"Yeah, about that, what's going on?" Frankie asked.

"I'm surprised no one's told you," Fred responded, not looking surprised at all. "Ellie was missing in the Maze for an hour."

"What?!" Frankie exclaimed. "An hour? What happened? Is she okay?"

"Let me tell you the story," Fred said, secretly loving to build suspense. "Gally ran into the Maze because he wanted to find a way to cure you. He thought getting stung by a Griever would give him an answer. Ellie saw him, ran after him, and caught him. According to Finn, they had a fistfight which Ellie _dominated_ , but they were cut short by a Griever—Ellie played the hero and ran further into the Maze to lead it away while Gally and Finn came back.

"Gally and Finn made it back to the Glade and told Nick everything, and they sent Runners out to look for her. Newt volunteered, by the way, which is incredible, knowing how much he despises the Maze. They were all out there looking for her for an hour. And Newt's just brought her back to the Glade."

"Is she okay, was she stung?" Frankie demanded.

"She's completely fine!" Fred smiled incredulously. "She didn't get stung, she didn't get too hurt, apart from some scrapes."

Frankie's eyes widened with his smile. "That's amazing!" he exclaimed. "I didn't even know you could escape a Griever!"

"Isn't it awesome?" Fred said. "Makes you think anything is possible."

Frankie rubbed his jaw, a sparkle returning to his eye.

"Yeah…"

—

That Ellie was safe, and as brave as she was, and now a hero, was a source of pride and joy now for the Gladers. When the Runners returned from searching for her, they cheered with happiness upon realizing that she was not gone. Each and every one of them had returned with a sense of crushing defeat that they could not find her anywhere. The news that she had been found was purely, overwhelmingly _amazing_.

Grievers were not invincible.

Finn cried from happiness, and Minho made fun of him while Ellie hugged him to comfort him, glaring at the Keeper all the while.

Ellie was still exhausted by the time dinner rolled around, but she managed to eat with her friends.

Her friends, minus Frankie. And minus Gally.

But they were all so hopeful and optimistic after Ellie's miraculous return that they began to hope that slim chances could end up reality. Honestly, though everything was a blur to her, and before she knew it, she was fed and collapsing into her sleeping bag, curling up next to Newt. Hearing each others' heart, sharing the same heat, taking in the other's scent. It was the best way to fall asleep.

—

The next day she went into the Maze again. For real, this time. Luckily, she could take it slower, and she could actually take the time to train Finn to be on his own. He wasn't exactly a natural. He tended to live in the moment, not remembering the way back. But he was improving. She supposed.

When she got back to the Map Room, the Runners pestered her about how she escaped the Griever.

She tried to recall it as best she could.

"They can't turn very well, so really I just ran really quickly around every corner—not _every_ corner—I was lucky and managed not to hit a bloody dead end. I led it to the Cliff and tripped it so it kind of fell over the edge. It was still hanging on by a thread, though, so I got the shuck out of there."

"Woah."

"I guess you could say—"

"Oh god here we go."

"It was a _Cliff_ -hanger."

"Wow."

—

People had stopped talking about Frankie. Nick, Alby, Clint, and just a few others were the only ones who knew about how he was, and they didn't like to say anything. They were all too scared to ask. But they thought about him all the time.

Ellie went to see Gally on his second-to-last day in the Slammer. He hadn't expected to see her; he'd thought she was too mad at him, that she was never going to be his friend again. It was destroying him, the thought that he had broken the first friendship he'd had in the Glade.

Honestly, throughout the week, Ellie had wondered about the same thing. He had acted like a complete fool, disregarding how everyone else would worry about him if he'd died and no one knew. Yes, his intentions were good, but they _had_ to minimize the death count as best they could. And what Gally had meant to do was too risky, too pointless.

That was the simplified version, anyway.

The truth is that if Ellie had any proof that anyone in the Glade had knowledge that could cure Frankie, she would personally drag them out into the Maze until they were stung, fight the Grievers single-handedly, and then get the victim back to the Glade. She cared about him that much.

But there was no proof that any of them had any idea about Tetanus. They were teenagers, not doctors, and they didn't have the ability to give anyone Tetanus shots. Even though Clint and Jeff kept putting down desperate requests for a cure.

And she couldn't fight one Griever, much less all of them. She knew that.

She peered into the Slammer, remembering doing the same thing for Edward. She tapped on the door quietly.

Gally looked up, surprise registering on his face as he recognized her. He stood from where he was sitting on the floor, coming up to the window to look back at her.

"Hey," he said, trying to hide his sheepishness. The last time she'd seen him, he'd tried to hurt her, and had almost succeeded. Then he'd acted like a complete coward.

"Hey, kid," she said, as always. But more subdued this time. Like she'd taken a step away from him.

 _Are you still mad at me? Do you hate me? Are you okay?_ What he said was, "How's Frankie?"

Ellie looked over her shoulder at the Glade. "No one's really talking about him. Maybe they're afraid they'll jinx him." She looked back at him, ensuring that her face was unreadable. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm just worried about him."

"We all are."

"No one acts like it."

"How do you _want_ them to act? Just stop what they're doing and lie down and cry?"

"I don't know," Gally said helplessly. "I just want them to _try_ to help."

"I believe in miracles, Gally," Ellie said, "But I don't think there's anything we can do this time."

Gally was quiet for a long time. "I can't accept that," he said finally.

"All right," Ellie sighed. "I'm not going to try to convince you. But don't make me fight you again."

"Trust me, I don't wanna relive that, either."

"Good. Goodnight, kid. Hang in there."

"Ellie?"

"Yeah, Gally?"

"Please don't give up on him."

—

Thomas and Teresa had been reading about Tetanus.

It seemed like a horrible way to die. Horrible, terrifying, painful, and slow. Symptoms include spasm of the jaw muscles, stiffness of the neck, difficulty in swallowing, and stiffness of the abdomen, fever, elevated blood pressure. Spasm of the vocal cords can lead to interference with breathing.

' _Patients can also break their spine or long bones from convulsions.'_

That was the bit that really stuck with Thomas.

The duo had begun to do research once they had seen Dr. Paige open a document about Tetanus on her own computer. Which meant _she_ was worried, too.

' _Tetanus has a high fatality rate.'_

Thomas was leaning in close to the screen, meticulously scanning the multiple pages they had open for anything helpful. Teresa was standing behind him, bent over the back of his chair, her blue eyes flicking from one document to the next. They had thought they might find some way to help Frankie. Maybe they could have snuck a small slip of paper with instructions on it into the Box. What they were really finding was just getting increasingly worrying.

 _'How long does it take to show signs of tetanus after being exposed? 3 to 21 days, with 8 being the average. The shorter the incubation period, the higher risk of death.'_

How long had it taken for Frankie's symptoms to start? Seven days? Eight? That wasn't the shortest it could be…Thomas put his mouth to his knuckles, worried eyes staring over his hands. He heard Teresa catch her breath and he twitched his head to let her know he had noticed. She reached over his shoulder and pointed at the screen.

' _There is no cure for tetanus once a person develops symptoms.'_

 _—_

Nick felt sick to his stomach. Not like he was going to throw up, just like his tense insides were twisting painfully. He couldn't stop thinking about Frankie. The guy's condition was getting worse. Had he done the right thing in quarantining him? His friends were getting more and more agitated, as Gally had shown. If Frankie was going to die, shouldn't his friends be allowed in to see him? So he could at least die in good company.

He shook his head. _Look at me. Is that really the mindset I've got?_

But Nick had to help Ellie, too, didn't he? If Frankie's friends got in to see how badly he was, how would that affect the morale of the Glade? She'd done so much good since she'd gotten here. He couldn't risk reversing that.

He couldn't help wondering whether Henry and Edward would have known what to do. Henry had always doubted himself, but he always managed to heal the Gladers. Edward, well…He wouldn't have minded forcefully holding Frankie down when he convulsed. Nick was level-headed enough not to blame himself for Henry's death, but Edward's was entirely on him. And he'd let Hank off the hook with just a few nights in the Slammer. What was wrong with him?

Nick clenched his fists and pulled himself back into the now. He couldn't fix the past, but he could use it to fix himself in the present. He would try to redeem himself. He just didn't know how to do that.

—

The day after Gally got out of the Slammer, he was sullen and irritable. He sat with his friends at breakfast but snapped at them when they spoke to him. Ellie, Newt, and Fred explained the way he was feeling to the rest of them, and most of their friends were understanding. Minho, however, took it particularly poorly and continued to be his usual sarcastic self, especially to Gally.

Finally, Gally exploded.

"What the _shuck_ is wrong with you, Minho?"

"What's wrong with _you,_ Gally? You've been raining on all our parades _all day_!"

Gally gave a scornful laugh. "Oh, _I'm_ raining on your parades. My bad; Frankie is dying. I didn't realize that was cause for a shucking parade."

"Guys," Newt tried to interject. "Slim yourselves, this isn't helping."

"No, no," Minho said, glaring at Gally. "I wanna know. You got a problem with us trying to continue our lives, Gally? You got a problem that we're not all lying around, whining and moaning and pining over Frankie?"

" _Yes!"_ Gally yelled. "You— _all_ of you—are just _ignoring_ him. Like you don't _care_ about him, you heartless slintheads!"

"Of course we care about him, shuckface," Minho shot back. "It's just that the rest of us understand that throwing a shucking _temper tantrum_ doesn't help anybody. You can't seem to get that into your thick skull, can you?"

Gally shot to his feet, about to start a fight. Minho stood to aggressively stare him down, fists balled.

"ENOUGH!" Ellie yelled, getting to her feet to pull Gally away. Alex was already holding Minho back.

Newt managed to come around in between them. "This doesn't help anyone, you bloody shanks. What are you gonna do, have a fistfight and suddenly Frankie's cured? Get a hold of yourselves; you're acting like children. Or worse: very irrational adults."

"The only child I see here is _that_ one," Minho spat at Gally, shoving Alex off of him.

Gally was about to snarl a comeback, but Ellie stepped in front of him, gesturing for Gally to stay back and glaring at Minho.

"That's because you're too caught up with how oh-so-bloody-great you are that you can't take a step back to look at how you're acting," she said, her steady voice a contrast to the disgust on her face. "Seriously, Minho, would it kill you to be compassionate for _once_ in your life?"

Gally opened his mouth to back Ellie up, and Minho opened his to retort.

" _Slim it!_ " Newt yelled before either could speak, his face becoming more intense than anyone had ever seen it. "Not a word, from both of you. Don't you have jobs to do?"

Minho sniffed, turned his head, and walked away, retaining dignity and acting like Gally wasn't worth it. Gally shoved Ellie's hand away furiously and stalked off towards the Homestead.

Ellie's heart was racing; she hated fighting with her friends. But she swallowed a lump in her throat and covered it up. She elbowed Newt and muttered, "Look at you, taking charge and klunk. Nick better watch out, he's about to have a challenger."

Newt didn't take his eyes off the retreating figure of Minho. "Bloody hell, I think I'd prefer the Maze to being in charge of immature shanks like these."

Ellie looked at him incredulously. "You would?"

He glanced at her. "So long as I never actually have to act on this bloody choice, then yes."

"That…" Ellie paused for a second. "That is an entirely useless answer."

Newt gave a quick exhale of amusement, accompanied by a twitch in his lips that might have been interpreted as a smile, an act that seemed a pathetic pass for laughter these days. Then, he bit his lip, still watching the two teens disappear. "Should we go after them? Talk to them?"

Ellie folded her arms. "And say what? No one wants to be reminded that they're acting irrationally, and I've already reassured them a hundred times Frankie will be okay."

Newt looked at her sharply. "Aren't you supposed to be the one spreading hope?"

Ellie's shoulders sank and her eyes fell. "I guess Frankie's getting to me, too," she whispered.

He was right, of course. What was wrong with her? She should be doing exactly as he said, before he said it, of her own volition. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Again. She spent so much time reassuring her friends when she so desperately needed reassurance, herself.

She was so sick of it. An inexplicable anger flowered her chest, and she instantly understood exactly why Minho and Gally were acting the way they were. She excused herself before she snapped at her boyfriend.

—

Fred was painting again. There were still some remnants of the paint they'd gotten for Finn's Greenbean Gala, though not much at all. Which was why Fred's painting would be small, and more vibrantly colorful than what he would have chosen if the amount of paint was no problem.

He had learned that Frankie's favorite color was red. There wasn't much red left, so he was using it mostly to accent oranges and yellows. Sometimes to put shadows on sections of those other basic warm colors. It was hardly a masterpiece, but Fred was doing his best with what was given to him. He wished he had some proper paints, not just this unimaginative rainbow face-paint you could buy at any old Target.

Fred entertained no thoughts of Frankie's recovery. He would not deceive himself just to comfort himself. Unlike Ellie. Fred liked Ellie, but she was an Idealist. Fred was a Realist, and had been since James had gone ballistic. Maybe even before. There was no point in having hope in the Glade. Hope ended up destroying people.

The truth was that Fred was already in mourning for Frankie, and had been for about a week. He had gone into Frankie's room in the Homestead and seen how sick the guy was. His arms had spasmed even as he used them to try to prevent his jaw from jerking. And Frankie had barely even noticed. He wasn't improving, he was just resigning himself to a life of pain. Frankie himself had already lost hope.

Fred was painting on a small rectangle of wood that the Bricknicks had tossed aside while making a bench. He would have wanted to make Frankie a bigger painting, but he didn't think there was enough paint. This one, small, parting gift would have to do.

It was a picture of a sunset. Lighter tones of yellows, oranges, and reds were blended together emanating out of a white circle sun, which almost touched dark red, still water that reflected the light. In the foreground, a lone tree with red leaves sprouted from the bottom of the rectangle. Of course, it was all confined in a rectangle maybe a foot long and two inches tall. That was just Fred's estimate, though. He wasn't good with distances. But it was definitely the perfect size to be nailed horizontally across another, vertical piece of wood.

Those stupid crosses that the Gladers placed to mark graves. Those stupid crosses that no one could remember the meaning of.

Fred picked up a knife and began to carefully carve Frankie's name into the piece of wood. He wanted Frankie's marker to be more beautiful. Fred thought Frankie deserved that, at least.

—

There were three days before the next Greenbean arrived. Frankie had survived almost a month, but he was fading. He had sometimes become delirious after waking up, and Clint had found him one morning with a hammer, kneeling at the foot of his bed and pounding at the wood beneath him with weak and uncontrolled strikes. His twitching and spasming had become more violent. He found it difficult to breathe, difficult to swallow, difficult to move.

In his lucid moments, he asked to see his friends again.

Gally appeared first. Tears came to his eyes as he fell into a chair by Frankie's bed. He grabbed Frankie's hand in greeting, and also partially to remind himself that Frankie was, in fact, still alive.

Frankie's head rolled to look at him. His torso was spasming angrily, forcing his breath to come raggedly. But his eyes shone as he recognized Gally.

"Hey, Frankfurter," Gally said, trying to keep his voice from breaking. He squeezed Frankie's hand.

"Ugh," Frankie groaned, his voice raw. As he spoke, the convulsions of his torso made some words come out more harshly. "Don't talk to _me_ like I'm _in_ an Old _Folks_ ' _Home_. Makes me _feel_ old." He offered a shuddering laugh, and Gally returned it uncertainly, yet with relief. At least Frankie was making jokes.

"How you holding up?" Gally asked.

"Awesome _ly_ ," Frankie responded. "Couldn't be _better_." He gave a thumbs up, but his hand twitched and ruined it. "Constantly _frus_ trated, but I'm _al_ right. How've _you_ been?"

"Worried about you, that's all. Ready for the day you'll recover and take over the Builders again."

"You and me _both_ , man." His chest convulsed several times in quick succession. "Have you _guys_ been _building_ anything cool while _I'm_ gone?"

"Just patching stuff up, really," Gally said, trying to think. "Nothing big. We were trying to save all the fun stuff till you got back."

"Aw, thanks, pal."

"Yeah, no problem."

"I'm _just_ —not sure I'll be _com_ ing _back_."

"What? Frankie, what do you mean?"

"I think _it's_ pretty shucking _ob_ vious what I _mean,_ Gally."

"What—no—Frankie, you're not gonna die."

" _Look_ at me. I'm not _get_ ting—any better. I can— _barely_ talk, man. I'm _worse_ than ever, and I _think_ I'm gonna die _soon_."

Gally could only shake his head for a few seconds. "No, no—Clint and Jeff would never let that happen."

" _What'_ re they going to _do_? They don't know _how_ to _fix_ me. _No_ one does. The _only reason_ Nick let you come _see_ _me_ is that _he_ thinks the _same._ "

Gally stared at him, his face betraying pain and anguish. He couldn't say anything; he didn't trust his voice.

" _Look_ , it'll be _better_. You guys _can_ handle _grief._ It's the _worry_ that _kills_ you. _Hey—_ Sorry, man, I didn't _mean_ for this to get _so sad._ I just wanted to _talk to_ my friends _again_."

Fred cleared his throat from the doorway, making both jump.

"Fred!" Frankie cried, thrilled to see him.

"Hey," Fred replied, coming into the room to the other side of Frankie's bed. There wasn't a chair, so he just tentatively leaned against the mattress. "I brought you a get-well gift."

" _Did_ you?"

Fred handed him his painting. Frankie's jaw twitched as it fell open. "Fred, this is _amazing_!"

Fred shrugged modestly, ducking his head. "You said you liked the color red, so…"

"I love it! I'll treasure _it_ fore _ver_!"

Fred blushed and smiled. "I'm glad."

Frankie disentangled his hand from Gally's and reached around to pat Fred on the shoulder. Then he cleared his throat and asked, "So, _uhh, what's_ there to _talk_ about in the Glade _these_ days?"

Fred smirked and glanced at Gally

Gally sat back. "I think people are mostly talking about my fight with Minho."

Frankie stared at him. "You got in a _fight with_ Minho?!"

"He was being a jerk!"

Frankie looked with open-mouthed, shocked concern at Fred, who gave a small shrug and said, "That's not wrong."

Turning back to Gally, Frankie exclaimed, "You got in a fistfight with a Keeper?! What the shuck?"

"No, not a fistfight, although it was about to be one. Ellie and Newt were there to stop it. But Minho and I still aren't on the best terms."

"Why?"

Gally sighed. This hadn't been what he'd wanted to talk about with Frankie. "I was lost in thought, wondering if I could figure a way to save you, and I snapped at Minho, it really wasn't that bad, but Minho yelled back, and it escalated from there."

Frankie's spell of convulsions seemed to be dying down, and he glared at Gally with disbelief. "You used my condition as an excuse to fight with one of our friends?"

Gally looked around, exasperated. "No one can seem to grasp the concept that I'm _upset_ , Frankie, I'm _upset_ about what's happening to you! I thought I'd thought of something that could help, but no one let me even try."

"Yeah, I heard about your little expedition into the Maze."

"Frankie—"

" _Gally_. Listen. Don't, anymore, okay? Don't risk people's lives for me."

"I was only trying to risk my own."

"Only?! First of all, even if that were true, the word _only_ does not apply to your life. Or anyone's life. It's never _only_ a life, it's _your_ life; it's all you've got. And Gally, I don't want you to die. And anyway, do you seriously think that if you went missing into the Maze, no one would run in there after you, and risk their necks to find you and bring you back?"

Fred was looking at Gally with a sincerely caring expression. "It's true, Gally. You're our friend, and you're a Glader. Not one of us would abandon you."

Frankie nodded. "You need to know that."

Gally was about to respond when the rest of the Builders arrived.

"Eyyyyy, Frankfurter," Stephen said, sauntering in with an arm around Ben's shoulders. Ben gave a smile and a little salute.

"How's our favorite Keeper?" asked Alex, coming in after the couple and being followed closely by Dave.

"Hangin' in there," Frankie grunted, sitting up. "You?"

Neil slipped in, almost unnoticed, and gave a small, forced smile before hiding behind Fred. Fred gave him a fist bump.

"I was wondering when Nick would let us come see you," Ben said, jumping onto the foot of the bed and bouncing there with a smile.

"Probably thought you'd scare us," Stephen added. "You're not _that_ scary."

Frankie laughed, but was cut off by his jaw jerking. The single instant of awkward, uneasy silence there would have been was cut off by Newt, Ellie, and Finn entering.

"Hey, Frankie!" Ellie chirped, and came around the bed to lean down and give Frankie a hug. "Oh, man, are you a sight for sore eyes."

"Ah, more like an eyesore. Look at me, I'm a mess! I haven't exactly had any time to clean up."

"None of us have, ya bloody shank, these two came right from the Maze," Newt put in.

"Yeah, I'm all sweaty and gross," Finn said with a ridiculous grin.

Alex whapped him on his shoulder. "That's not something to be proud of! How dare you not look your best for our main guy here." He gestured grandly to Frankie.

In response, Finn rubbed his shoulder and stated firmly: "Ow." With just a touch of comical indignity.

Ellie yelled, "HAH!" and after everyone jumped a little from surprise, she cried, "He's been Finn-jured!"

After multiple groans, eye-rolls, and a loud "UGH" from Ben, Ellie said. "I have been waiting for an opportunity to use that one for _weeks_."

Stephen gave Alex a mock-glare. "You _had_ to give her the opportunity."

"Opportu-Newt-ty."

Newt looked at her as if he were offended that she used his name in a pun.

"Don't rain on my parade, I'm in my Ellie-ment, here," she said, followed by more eye-rolling.

"Oh, just kill me now," Frankie groaned. Ellie widened her eyes at him accusingly.

"Too soon."

Frankie shrugged happily, like he didn't care that he'd gone ever so slightly too far. His friends were around him, and that was all he wanted. Speaking of his friends….He looked around. "Anyone know if Minho's gonna visit?"

"He'd better," Ellie said sassily, legitimately intending to beat him up if he didn't. Although she wasn't sure she could beat Minho up. Maybe if she got the jump on him—

"He's probably avoiding me," Gally explained. "If he comes, he'll come later, when I'm not here."

"Wow, so he's giving you the silent treatment? _Lame_."

—

Minho was climbing the stairs when he heard his name. Frankie was asking about him, so he hung back.

"He'd better," Ellie said with attitude.

"He's probably avoiding me," Gally sighed, as if he were bored and Minho was being a child. Minho folded his arms. Was Gally trying to get Frankie on _his_ side of the argument? He _had_ been intending to visit with everyone together, but now… " _If_ he comes, he'll come later, when I'm not here." Why did he have to say 'if' like Minho wouldn't visit his dying friend? He scowled.

"Wow, so he's giving you the silent treatment? _Lame_." As if Minho were a baby.

He put on a smirk and entered the doorway. "Who's lame?" he asked. He fully expected them to lie to him and say they were talking about someone else.

Ellie was about to, in fact. She was ready to say, "Nick is," frankly and easily, because she had been caught talking about someone behind their back, and an instinct popped up in the back of her head and told her to bluff her way out.

Frankie had different ideas.

"You are."

Minho put an overdramatic hand on his chest to pretend he was offended. " _Me_? How dare you, _sir_."

"You and Gally need to make nice, okay? I won't have you two fighting, not in my last days." His abdominal convulsions started up again, and he groaned, jaw twitching.

Minho sauntered in, waving his hand dismissively. "Oh, come on, Frankfurter, you're going to have a long lifetime to watch us bickering."

"Oh, don't _pre_ tend you think _I'm_ going to sur _vive_ this," Frankie said. "I know _you_ don't."

"You seem pretty chipper for a guy who's gonna die," Minho said.

"I'm am _ong_ friends," Frankie said, smiling. "Whom I would die for. Now, you two, make nice."

A silence followed, in which Gally finally turned his head to make eye contact with Minho. Minho raised a vaguely disdainful eyebrow at Gally.

Ellie's eyes traveled from one to the other. She caught Gally's shoulders relaxing after a few seconds. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and spoke.

"I'll put it behind me if you will." Not an apology. No remorse. The offer of forgetting, but not of forgiveness.

Minho pretended to consider and then shrugged, "Consider it forgotten."

"Good. _Finally_ ," Ellie said, heaving a dramatic sigh of relief. If they weren't best of friends, at least they were getting along for Frankie's sake. Not that they had ever really been best friends.

The group of friends ate dinner lounging around Frankie's room. Frankie choked twice, giving half of them heart attacks until Fred acted quickly and pounded on his stomach. He seemed to be in good spirits nonetheless, so they stayed with him for as long as they could, right up until Clint came in and told them they had to leave.

—

Ellie sat up in her sleeping bag, as Newt drifted off to sleep next to her. She considered the past few hours they'd spent with Frankie. She had had fun, for sure. She had legitimately been happy to spend time with _all_ of her friends for the first time since his quarantine.

But now, looking back on it, she thought about how depressing it really was. His chest had been convulsing almost the whole time, and she had noticed once, while Alex was talking, he had stopped breathing, like he was holding his breath for several seconds. He'd hidden it, and not made a big deal of it, but Ellie was pretty sure he had blacked out for a few seconds. And the way he had choked? It was all so terrifying.

She didn't even want to think about Minho and Gally. They had said that there were no hard feelings, but Ellie was clever enough to understand that there were almost always hard feelings. There had been hard feelings between those two almost since the day Gally had arrived.

How could she even go about fixing this?

She had doubted her whole I'm-the-hope-signal-because-I'm-an-infertile-girl job before, but never had it seemed quite this useless, even when she herself had been suffering a mental malfunction. She couldn't fix Frankie, and she had never fixed Gally and Minho's relationship. She wanted to punch something. She had been trying so hard, this whole time, to make sure everyone had a smile on their face at least once every day.

A thought was racing around in her head, but she was trying so hard to avoid it.

 _Keep thinking about everyone else. They're my friends. They're what matter. Are they going to be okay?_

She lay down and stared into blank space.

The thought finally caught hold of her mind and put itself into words.

 _Am I happy?_

Ellie frowned stubbornly and pushed it away: _Yes. Of course I am. Or I would be, if Frankie weren't dying._

 _Actually, am I? I'm stuck here, few memories, no real goal except to escape._

 _We'll get out. We have to. We just need to be patient._

 _We can do that._

—

Newt tended to wake up before Ellie did, even though she was a Runner. He liked to think in the early morning. She'd told him before that it was a bad habit of his, because he usually had depressing thoughts. He was pretty sure that he'd gotten better since meeting her, though. She had helped him shake the notion that he was meaningless, and that no one cared about him. He was lucky to have her.

Frankie's sickness was making him think about her more, about how real she felt now, lying next to him, breathing steadily. Skin, bone, blood, organs, muscles, personality, emotions—everything that was Ellie, right now. He remembered when she'd gotten to the Glade. No one had even dreamed, then, that Frankie would have stepped on a rusty nail. _Even now_ , he thought, _there's something in her future that I could never, in a million years, foresee_.

What would he do if he lost her?

Maybe it was selfish to be thinking about himself and Ellie while Frankie was dying. Even as he thought the word, Newt felt a pang. He tried to get used to the idea of the Glade without Frankie. He didn't feel like it was quite hitting that he might have to do so in the near future. Maybe he was still in denial.

Ellie's watch beeped, and she began to stir. Her eyes blinked open, unfocused, and she squeezed them shut before opening them again. Her beautiful dark eyes met his, and she made a face.

"Have you been thinking sad things, again?"

"Kind of."

"What did I bloody tell you, Salamander?" Ellie stretched and pushed herself up so that she was just sitting next to him.

"You can't really blame me."

He expected her to say, "Oh yes I can," or, "Just you watch me," but what he got was, "Yeah. You're right."

He almost frowned at her in confusion before he realized that it was unrealistic to force Ellie to stay hopeful while her friend was dying. He reached for her hand and intertwined their fingers. She looked at him gratefully, and he offered a smile. "Stay strong, yeah? Remember, we get to look forward to the new Greenbean in two days. That's always fun, right?"

She nodded, smiling. Her eyes crinkled at the edges when she smiled, and Newt thought that was utterly adorable.

She heaved a sigh and began to get up. "Guess I'd better get going. That Maze isn't gonna run itself."

They tended to leave their fingers intertwined until they slowly slipped apart on their own as Ellie left, but Newt caught onto her a second before their fingers disconnected.

"Hey," he said earnestly. She looked back at him and their eyes connected again, full of emotion on both sides. "Be careful out there."

Another smile, accompanied by a cute shrug.

"Obviously."

—

The day passed in an unbelievable blur of worry for Frankie's health.

The Builders' escapade of building a new room onto the Homestead ended in collapse. Instead of expressing disappointment and displeasure that their work had been for nothing, they wordlessly picked up the planks and began again. Mindless.

Minho forgot to mark down the turns of the Maze as he ran it. He wasted a good hour running before he realized, and then had to turn back and run it all again, marking it down. Empty.

Ellie saw a World in Catastrophe plaque on the wall, coming up. She wanted to lift her arm to smack it, but for some reason, couldn't muster the energy. She simply ran past it. Resigned.

Newt wanted to visit Frankie during lunch, but found himself with the unshakable fear that, while he was visiting, Frankie would die, right in front of him. So he ate lunch outside, on his own. Afraid.

Only Fred passed the day normally. He did everything he was supposed to, flawlessly, with unexpected focus. He visited Frankie briefly, offering his rare smiles to a dead man. Then he went back out into the Glade to work. Auto-piloted.

Frankie lay in his Homestead bed, jerking, spasming, twitching, like he was the marionette of some demented puppet-master. Finding it hard to breathe, and hard to swallow. Helpless.

The only time any of them came alive was at dinner, when they all surrounded Frankie's bed. Ellie brought her guitar, and she and Newt half-performed the song she had been teaching him. He forgot some of his words, so she sung with him. On the part when they both sang different things at the same time, he was bloody well on his own.

The amount of times the whole friend group had surrounded this bed was unbelievable. For Newt, then for Ellie, then Ellie again, and then _so many times_ for Frankie. Ben joked that he volunteered to be next.

"I could use a good bed for once in my life."

"You have slept in a bed before, Ben."

" _Have_ I, though, Minho? _Have I_?"

No one could argue with that.

Frankie's back arched violently once, and everyone panicked, unsure of what to do. Fred tried jabbing him in a few places, but nothing worked. He came out of the spasm on his own, and in a few minutes they started laughing at how they had begun to run around like headless chickens. That seemed to be the last big episode he had that night, but all his friends discreetly watched him like a group hawks.

Only hawks don't hunt in groups.

Vultures do.

—

Frankie was awoken during the dark hours of the morning, unable to breathe in. His stomach spasmed and air he had had in his lungs was expelled into the Homestead. He felt around with his hands as his body began to burn from lack of oxygen. He began to panic, making the problem worse. He began to see spots.

Poor Jeff was sitting against the wall across from the bed. Frankie wanted to call out for help. This had happened before, and it helped sometimes when someone hit his chest. But Jeff had dozed off, and Frankie was unable to make noise.

With his mouth, at least. Frankie's hand found Fred's painting of a sunset. He held it in front of his eyes as they stopped working properly. How he wanted to go outside, one more time, and see the sun. How amazing Fred's painting was.

How beautiful the Glade seemed to him now that he couldn't see it.

He thought about his last breath. Amusing, that he wasn't even awake to experience his own last breath. What had his last words been?

' _Good night_.'

He hesitated a little longer than he should have. Oxygen deprivation weakened his muscles, and he couldn't muster the strength to make a noise and wake Jeff up.

 _At least they won't need to worry anymore…_

 _—_

"Jeff, what have you done?"

—

Newt stood up as he saw Clint and Jeff exited the Homestead. Ellie hadn't woken yet. Something twisted in his gut, a warning to run.

 _Something is wrong._

He looked around as if another part of the otherwise sleeping Glade could give him an answer. Why would both Clint and Jeff leave the Homestead? Someone was supposed to be watching Frankie at all times.

 _No._

Jeff and Clint gathered all of Frankie's friends. Nick, Alby, Minho, Ellie, Fred, Newt, Ben, Dave, Alex, Gally, Stephen, and Finn sat around a picnic table, bleary-eyed, with a growing sense of dread.

"I hope you've got a good reason to wake me up a full thirty minutes before I'm supposed to," was Minho's one comment.

Jeff's heart was fluttering painfully. It was his fault. He couldn't meet any of their eyes.

Gally stood up as he realized who was there, and what was happening. A piece of him cracked as a rehearsal for the splintering, crushing break that was to come.

Fred was staring at the table, both hands running fingers over his scalp.

Blood was rushing in Ellie's ears. It made it hard to hear the words.

 _Frankie is dead_.

 _He went in his sleep._

 _He just stopped breathing._

 _There's nothing anyone could have done._

Ellie was vaguely aware of silence.

She could recall that noise was just vibrations in the air, being interpreted by the brain. How could this silence produce so much vibration? The noise in her ears was deafening, almost blinding—maybe those were two separate things. Ellie forgot. Her eyes seemed to cease to function, and everyone looked like a cardboard cutout of themselves. Too unrealistically separate from their backgrounds. In the back of her throat, something tightened. It hurt, and she didn't like it. Almost dreamlike, her eyes moved down to her hands. Somehow, her palms had turned to her. They were vibrating, too. She looked around at everyone. They were all shaking so quickly that their figures were blurring.

And Frankie wasn't vibrating at all.

How many people had been at this table to begin with? Some dulled part of her told her she should be worried about them. She counted faces and couldn't remember names. Everything felt so disconnected.

 _Not everyone has to die, Ellie…Think about if Frankie lives!_

 _I believe in miracles, Gally._

How foolish it had been to hope for a miracle. Miracles didn't exist. How many times had she vouched for the truth of miracles? Behind every miracle, every wall and every cardboard-backdrop tree were the Creators, pulling strings and pushing buttons and watching screens and choosing who lived and who suffered and who died. They were just watching a reality TV show, with green screens and props and cameras. Frankie's actor had simply left the show.

None of that made sense.

Ellie would have sworn she'd passed out, that running through the Glade, away from concerned, vibrating faces, had been a fever-dream from a girl who had fainted. It felt like an entire timeline was being erased right in front of her. A whole reality had gone whirling down the drain. A whole life where Frankie had lived could have lain before her, and she watched every memory from her future dissipate into golden dust. She had pictured finding the way out an unfathomable amount of times, and in every single image, Frankie had been there.

His disappearance from those hopeful prophecies seemed to shatter the whole illusion. An X-Acto knife cut his figure out from a photograph Ellie had taken. With that piece missing, the rest of the picture was worthless.

Ellie's eyes began working again and she was crouching in a corner. _Corner?_ She looked up at stone walls. The very corner of the Glade. Behind her was the densest part of the Deadheads. She twisted around and huddled against the wall.

—

The Builders insisted on digging the grave. Gally had yelled at the Baggers until they backed off, and he had almost done the same to the rest of his friends. Luckily, they were all incredibly stubborn and just as shattered as he was. If not more.

Ellie was nowhere to be found. Newt was looking for her. He was sure that she wouldn't have gone into the Maze in the state she was in, but none of the rest of them were sure. After Clint had told them, Ben had disappeared for a while, too. Finn was running the Maze on his own. Minho had gone in after him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid, because it was easier to focus on worry for someone living than grieving someone dead.

Fred was making Frankie's cross. He had slipped his painting out of Frankie's hands, and now he was nailing it horizontally across another piece of wood.

The Body was lying peacefully under the Glade sun for all to see, hands folded across his chest as if he were just napping. Fred had closed his eyes, because he couldn't stand to see the color that dead eyes were.

—

Ellie reappeared when the body was being put into the ground. Newt limped close behind her, but she never looked at him. She walked through the Gladers to the front of the crowd, so that she could see her friend disappear under the ground.

The Builders all placed dirt on top of his body gently, because they felt like throwing it in would be disrespectful.

"Will you sing?" Gally asked Ellie.

She didn't reply, just took a deep breath and sang. She felt like the song was supposed to have more harmony. Wasn't that fitting. The words felt like they were choking her, and her eyes ached from the tears. She couldn't see; she'd been crying for hours.

 _Just sing_.

For Frankie.

" _Oh, all the money that e'er I spent,_

 _I spent it in good company_

 _And all the harm that e'er I've done,_

 _Alas, it was to none but me._

 _And all I've done for want of wit_

 _To memory now, I can't recall_

 _So, fill to me the parting glass…_

 _Good night, and joy be with you all._

 _Oh, all the comrades that e'er I've had_

 _Are sorry for my going away…_

 _And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had_

 _Would wish me one more day to stay…_

 _But since it falls unto my lot_

 _That I should rise and you should not_

 _I'll gently rise and I'll softly call…_

 _Good night, and joy be with you all._

 _—_

 _Good night, and joy be with you all…_


	10. A Long-Forgotten Christmas Memory

**A/N: So I went to youtube the other day and I went to look up "The Parting Glass" by the Wailin' Jennys and I just so happened to look in the comments section, and saw that a couple people said that Frankie brought them there…Was that any of you guys? Or is there another Frankie I'm unaware of...? Let me know.**

 **Also I feel the need to mention I have no more prewritten chapters, which is why it's taking longer to update since I'm balancing this with schoolwork, several other non-fanfic stories I'd like to get published, and social interaction, which I hear is good for you.**

 **Anyway, here's a _SUPER CHEESY_ and _SUPER SILLY_ Holiday Special I put together really last minute, from a year or two before the boys went up into the Glade, so everyone's still alive :) . Hope you like it, and Happy Holidays, you guys!**

* * *

 _Two or three years before…_

—

A camera flashed into the face of Ava Paige, who had been trying her best to study some data that had been sent to her by a colleague. She hadn't noticed the touch-phone slowly appearing over her computer until the flash went off, and then she heard…

"Shit! The flash was on!"

And she began to laugh.

Twelve-and-thirteen-years-old Ellie, Newt, Ben, Teresa, and Minho crept sheepishly from behind her desk. Well, _Ben_ was the sheepish one; Ellie and Newt were laughing uncontrollably, and Minho just yelled, "WE'VE BEEN MADE," and sprinted from the room.

"What are you kids doing in here?" Dr. Paige asked, still laughing.

"Trying to get a picture of you," Ben answered.

"Yeah, a picture of you at your happiest," Teresa added. "When you're neck-deep in your boring old _science_ stuff."

Dr. Paige screwed up her face to hide the persistent smile. "Um…Why?"

"Come _on_ , Dr. Paige!" Ellie said, tugging on her shirtsleeve. "You _never_ let us take pictures of you! It's the holiday season, let us _live_ just this once!"

"You know, the world outside these walls isn't having any holiday celebrations," Dr. Paige pointed out.

"We know, we know," Newt said. "But we're in here! Shouldn't we make the most of it? We'll be risking our lives soon enough, right?"

Ellie and the others nodded along with him.

"Come on! We'll be in it with you," Ellie tried to bargain.

"And I hate pictures," Teresa lied. She took pictures all the time.

"Ugh," Dr. Paige gave in. "Fine."

"Yay!"

Ben ended up taking a selfie that incorporated everyone—to prove it to Frankie, he said, that we'd succeeded.

"Really? You guys take selfies? Isn't that a little old fashioned?"

" _You're_ old fashioned!" Teresa shot back.

"We're old souls," Newt said at the same time.

So they got their picture, finally. Ben took about thirty selfies of them all on the old phone, then ten blurry pictures as he continued to press the trigger as they began to leave, and then several stalker pictures from the door as Ava Paige smirked at them on their way out. Finally, once they had all cleared out, the children turned their backs and ran.

There was a lounge in the center of the halls that held their dorm rooms that the Group A children liked to gather in. It had several semicircle blue couches and two TVs, on opposite walls—you know, in case the kids wanted to watch _two_ movies at the _same time,_ in the _same_ _room_. Like _dumbasses_. Anyhow, the Group A boys were already there, perched on their various couches (it was almost like assigned seating, the way they'd chosen their spots and then defended them with their very lives). Minho had made it back before them (obviously) and was telling the story of Ben's face after the flash went off directly into the face of Dr. Ava Paige, sound effect and all, when Ellie and her group entered.

"We got it!" Ben yelled triumphantly, and the room exploded.

"No way!"

"You did not."

"How the hell did you get her to agree?"

"We told her it was Christmas," Ellie explained. "Or, the holiday season. She was a good sport about it, actually, I think the flash incident probably helped a lot."

"Good ole Science Mom."

"When is Christmas, actually? Does anyone remember?" Ben asked as they went to take their spots. His, Ellie's, and Teresa's were all directly next to each other, so that they had to squish together to fit. Teresa made it easier by sitting sideways and putting her legs over onto the laps of Ben and Ellie.

"December 25," Fred said quietly.

"Ah!" Ellie snapped her fingers. "So we were only, like, a few days off."

"A week off."

"Right! So what should we do for Actual-Christmas?"

"What, so watching a movie isn't enough for you this year?" Newt asked, smirking.

"Nope!"

"So do you want to throw a party?" Frankie asked. "We've got a place—here. Ellie, you could play your guitar. Fred could make decorations." He glanced around at the bland white walls. "We could paint this room."

"They'd never let us do that, dumbass," Edward said grumpily, from his corner.

"Yeah, but we could still decorate," Henry shot back. Edward shrugged. "With non-permanent decor."

"I've got a couple packs of face-paint," Fred offered.

"I could carve something," Chuck put in, his eyes lighting up in his pudgy face. "I've been teaching myself how to whittle."

"We have a week. Can you do it that fast, in between classes and stuff?"

Chuck nodded, snorting, "I don't pay attention anyway."

"So," Ellie planned, rubbing her hands together, "we could play a movie, Mark and Justin and I could play festive holiday tunes. Fred can be in charge of decorations, Chuck can whittle. What else?"

"Hide and seek?" suggested Nick. "Tag?"

Stephen added, "I've got a few word-association games we could play!"

"Truth or dare!" Alex added.

"Ah, the classic girly sleepover game," Teresa joked. Then, in a mockingly high voice, she said, " _Ooh_ , Alex, who do you think is cutest?"

"Hot potato," Thomas suggested.

"Got any potatoes, Siggy?" Hank asked teasingly.

" _You're_ a hot potato."

"Right, so if the cafeteria doesn't give us any baked potatoes," Edward said, examining his fingernails, "We can just toss Hank around to one other."

Hank winked at him. "You calling me hot?"

Edward scowled, Henry giggled, and Minho leapt up to try to pick Hank up in his arms. Succeeding, he began to swing him around the room while the victim shrieked.

"HOT POTATO HOT POTATO HOT POTATO HOT—" Minho chanted.

"So basically," Ellie said to the people who remained to focus on the issue, ignoring the wild flailing of her friends. "We're gonna play all the games we know of, at the _same_ _time_."

"What, do you wanna make an itinerary?" Teresa asked.

"I just want to have a fun bloody party together."

Newt shrugged. "Come on, you know it'll be fun. With us, what isn't fun? It'll probably even be fun in the Maze, if we try hard enough."

"Woah, woah, woah, woah woah. Woah," Thomas waved his hands. "No talking about the Maze. It's Christmas, Newton, try to keep the holiday spirit."

"How was I not keeping the holiday spirit?!"

"Live for today, my friend, live for today," Ben advised.

"Or for December twenty-fourth."

"Twenty fifth!"

"Twenty fifth! Like I said…"

—

Group A began to beg their guardians to let them have a Christmas vacation, starting that very night, and WICKED began to regret teaching them about old traditions. After the thirty-fifth child asked Janson whether they could take the week off, he screamed, "FINE!" and ejected the unfortunate soul from his office. And so, the preparations progressed rapidly. The lounge quickly filled up with Fred's decorations—snowflakes cut from colored paper hung from the ceiling, where Alex and Dave helped him tape strings to its flat surface.

Finn ran about placing red and green sticky notes on the walls for flare. Abe, Jack, and Will could do origami, and they taught Han and Skippy to make paper stars which they could place around the room.

Billy, who could actually knit quite well, made Santa hats.

Henry tried to help wherever he could, and Edward followed his efforts up with destructive criticism wherever he went.

Ellie, Mark, and Justin threw themselves into learning the instrumentals to Christmas songs that everyone could sing along to. They decided to ditch "The Twelve Days of Christmas" after Minho sang the song in its entirety, loudly and with gusto, in the middle of the lounge. When Edward had chased him from the lounge, he had hidden in a hallway and continued to bellow it, so that they could still hear him.

So that song was out.

Newt and Nick were in charge of choosing holiday movies, and they chose several not-necessarily-christmas-y-but-still-heartwarming movies that they could play in the background of their party.

Honestly, these children had no idea about the religious part of Christmas. Christmas hadn't been celebrated since the Flare had shown up; they'd only heard stories of it from Dr. Paige and some of the nicer doctors. They'd found traditional decoration in old children's books and were doing their best to mimic the colors and shapes.

Since Siggy was closest to the kitchen staff, he was instructed to get snacks for the party, and so he began to bring back candies and baked goods like cookies from the cafeteria and stash them wherever he could. He had some trusted sidekicks in this endeavor, who he knew would not eat them before the party.

Frankie, Thomas, and Teresa were closest to Dr. Paige, and decided they'd try to manipulate her into getting them a present.

"Dr. Paige—"

"We're putting together a—"

"A party! A Christmas party!"

"We were wondering if we should—"

"Get you a present, or—"

"Or if you could get us a present? Not one for each of us, obviously…Just one present for us all!"

Dr. Paige smirked and tossed them out, but they didn't give up. They placed sticky notes on her door, on her computer, and in the halls, that said stuff like _WICKED is good—or would be, if they had the Christmas spirit,_ and _Christmas gift? We'll get you one._

Which, of course, left them with the problem of what to get her. So that if she didn't get them anything, she would at least feel guilty about it. In the end, Frankie recruited Gally to help him make a green-colored paper christmas tree for her. They folded the paper into a cone, and then added to the bottom of it until it was about two feet tall. It took a lot of paper, but they were proud of it. They put one of the origami stars on top and then cut red circles for ornaments, and cut a spiral in yellow paper for the string of lights. Then they wrote at the bottom, _From Group A, who loves you the most. 3_

They put it on her desk, and when she found it, she sighed in exasperation, but kept it anyway.

The rest of the group was a little jealous that they didn't keep it in the lounge.

When the day itself finally came, Group A all individually leapt from their beds, tripped, got up, and raced down the hall to enjoy Christmas.

But their plans had been foiled.

Their excitement faltered as they saw Janson and a few guards stood, arms crossed, in front of the locked door of the lounge.

Ellie reached him first and stopped, her head buzzing with confusion. He wasn't going to stop them, was he? He had told them they could! Had he changed his mind?

But there he stood, scowling furiously at them as more and more children came into the hallway.

Newt was pressed up behind Ellie as the crowd was shoved together. He grabbed her hand and her fallen heart made a desperate attempt to climb back up. But it didn't work, because the Rat Man began to speak.

"I'm ashamed of you kids," Janson said coldly as they gathered in front of him. "The world out there is suffering! People are dying and going insane; families are being torn apart as we speak, and you've decided to spend this week making _Christmas decorations_. Shameful. Have you no humility? This facility is not here as a safe place for you to _play_. We are trying to save lives here, and it would not kill you to at least _pretend_ to take this seriously. You've wasted a whole week on this stupid party of yours, and now you're all going to spend today cleaning it all up. Every last bit. And then you're going to go to your rooms without food, and tomorrow your lessons will begin again. Do I make myself clear?"

The children, whose shoulders were slumped with heartbreak, barely moved.

"Do I _make_ myself _clear_?"

"Sir," Ellie said pleadingly. "We spent all week on this. Can't we at least enjoy it?"

Janson took a step towards her, and she shrunk away from him. "This is how life goes, Ellie. You make a mess, you clean it up. No, you don't get to _enjoy_ it." He stared out across the room of children, sneering. "Now. Get to it."

The guards opened the door and Group A filed into their festive creation. They picked sticky notes off the walls, plucked snowflakes from their strings, peeled tape off the ceiling, gathered Fred's painting supplies, searched for every last origami star, and handed Santa hats back to Billy. Movies were stowed away in their cabinet again. Janson pointed to a large trash can in the corner, and with sunken hearts and the feeling of bitter injustice, those who cradled decorations in their arms trudged over to it and dumped them in. Fred was allowed to keep his paint, but he looked on at the sorry scene with sadness in his eyes. Billy was instructed to throw away his Santa hats.

This was meant to be a happy day.

Once they had finished, and Chuck (the youngest) and a few others had frustratedly wiped tears off their faces, they stood in the no-longer festive room and stared around at it. All their work, gone to waste. Thomas hugged Chuck to comfort him. He'd really been looking forward to today. Ellie glared at Janson with tears in her eyes and fury in her heart, directed both at him and at herself. This had been her idea. If only she'd kept her damn mouth shut and watched a movie like always. Now they had nothing, which was actually worse than what they'd had before.

The guards inspected the room to make sure it was spotless, and then nodded to Janson, who, with a particularly smug look on his face, ordered the children to return to their rooms.

He caught Frankie on his way out and growled, "Don't you dare try bribing Dr. Paige ever again." Then he let him go.

Ellie returned to her room and closed the door. And _then_ she began to cry. She sat heavily on her bed and pressed her hands over her eyes.

Around her, through the walls, she knew others were doing the same thing.

—

A few hours later, the lights went off early, since there was no dinner, and Ellie, with her stomach rumbling, decided she might as well go to sleep. Only she couldn't, because she was so hungry. She tried to ignore it, but it was persistent and painful.

Finally, as she drifted into a half-sleep, a rap on the door startled her awake.

"Open up!" Newt hissed from outside. She jumped from her bed and opened the door to see Newt, Ben, and Siggy standing eagerly in the hallway.

"Siggy kept the food in his room!" Newt whispered. "We can at least eat. Should we? It still Christmas."

Ellie's heart leapt. "Yes!" she said, grabbing her guitar from by the door. Then, the four of them set off down the hallways, knocking on doors and rousing their friends, telling them to wake up whoever they could and meet in the lounge. Since the lights were out, it was lit mostly by flashlights. Each teen had one in their room. Finally, they counted every eager face, and found everyone there.

In the dim light, Fred was folding the last piece of green paper into a cone. He taped the ends together to make them a tiny paper Christmas tree. Abe folded a white origami star and leaned it next to the Christmas cone, and then the Gladers took their spots on the couches. Ellie strummed her guitar casually, a smile growing on her face.

Then, Siggy arrived with the snacks. He'd nicked cookies, candy bars, bags of chips, and a bunch of other really unhealthy stuff from the kitchens. Enough to feed the fifty-ish kids in the room. A quiet cheer rose from Group A as they passed the food around.

This is how they spent Christmas.

They spoke quietly, pressed up near each other and feeling the warmth of excitement of the room. They shared snacks with each other, since a lot of people wanted the same candies. A few people went to fetch blankets from their rooms, and then they collectively snuggled under fuzzy comforters. Lights played around the room as flashlights fell over, were readjusted, and then nudged again.

They began to play Telephone, where one person whispered a phrase into the ear of the person next to them, around the circle, until the original phrase had been so diluted that at the end it was something absurdly different. They had to smother their laughter upon hearing what it had turned into

This matched the festivities that Janson had made them tear down. They had made so many decorations, but this equalled it, and Ellie actually might've preferred this low-key Christmas celebration to anything they might've done.

The room quieted when she began to strum the opening notes of an old Christmas song she'd learned by someone called Mariah Carey.

" _I don't want a lot for Christmas…There is just one thing I need._

 _I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree…_ "

There was some snickering as the teens all glanced at the tiny Christmas tree, under which no present could fit.

" _I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know._

 _Make my wish come true…_ "

Ellie glanced and winked at Newt, and then sang, " _All I want for Christmas is…you!_ "

Her strumming got faster and more rhythmic, and her friends all began to clap and sing along. Some of the more talented singers harmonized, but more often, they were singing badly, for comedic purposes.

 _"I don't want a lot for Christmas!_

 _There is just one thing I need, and I_

 _don't care about the presents_

 _underneath the Christmas tree._

 _I don't need to hang my stocking_

 _There upon the fireplace…_

 _Santa Clause won't make me happy_

 _With a toy on Christmas day!"_

They knew Janson might hear them and come to shut it down, but now they had already celebrated, and even if he came, they might keep singing anyway.

" _I just want you for my own,_

 _More than you could ever know_

 _Make my wish come true!_

 _All I want for Christmas is you!_

 _Youuuu, baby!"_

Dr. Paige was watching them on a security camera, and listening, and she bobbed her head along to the tune, glancing fondly at her Christmas tree that they'd made to bribe her.

" _Oh, I won't ask for much this Christmas_

 _I won't even wish for snow_

 _And I'm just gonna keep on waiting_

 _Underneath the mistletoe_

 _I won't make a list and send it_

 _To the North Pole for Saint Nick_

 _I won't even stay awake to_

 _Hear those magic reindeer click_

 _'Cause I just want you here tonight_

 _Holding on to me so tight_

 _What more can I do?_

 _Baby, all I want for Christmas is you_

 _You, baby_

 _Oh, all the lights are shining_

 _So brightly everywhere_

 _And the sound of children's_

 _Laughter fills the air_

 _And everyone is singing_

 _I hear those sleigh bells ringing_

 _Santa, won't you bring me the one I really need?_

 _Won't you please bring my baby to me?_

 _Oh, I don't want a lot for Christmas_

 _This is all I'm asking for_

 _I just want to see my baby_

 _Standing right outside my door_

 _Oh, I just want you for my own_

 _More than you could ever know_

 _Make my wish come true_

 _Baby, all I want for Christmas is you"_

 _"All I want for Christmas is you…"_


	11. Those Who Grieve

**A/N: OK! So I just now read the Fever Code, and oh man have I gotten some things wrong. Sorry about that. My plan originally was to make sure the fanfic didn't touch on any time period/area that we saw in the books, but alas! 'Twas not meant to be. But I'm gonna try and stick to what I've already written. Maybe in the far future I'll go back and edit some of the previous chapters to fit with the books better. Probably not. But maybe. Anyway, here's the newest chapter! Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Dr. Ava Paige was not one for grand entrances. She would have liked to be, of course, but she simply could not bring herself to be so dramatic. There was quite enough drama supplied in the job description; no need for a personal touch.

She walked into her meeting with the Elites—Thomas and Teresa from Group A and Aris and Rachel from Group B—and Janson, who were all sitting around her desk.

She didn't beat around the bush. She came around her desk and put the papers down on the surface, trying hard not to seem angry.

"There is an issue in Group A," she said sternly. "Ellie is not doing her job."

Aris swallowed nervously, and the other teenagers looked around uncertainly.

"Now," Dr. Paige continued. "I know that she can't be blamed, even if she does blame herself. Frankie's death hit everyone pretty hard. But she was still put into the Glade to bring hope to the hopeless, and I regret to say that if she fails, if she changes the mood of her peers back to the way it was before she got there, then there is no more use for her there."

Aris leaned forward. "With respect, ma'am, if we remove her from the Glade now, it would be even worse for them all."

Dr. Paige sat down. "We've had this conversation before, Aris. It was always the plan for her and Max to be gone by the time Phase Two starts."

"I know we've had this conversation before, but my opinion is the same. If she disappears from their lives, imagine their grief!"

"And again, I tell you, we have a plan for that."

"Then why won't you tell us?" Thomas challenged her.

"Consider it a preparatory Variable for yourselves," Dr. Paige said coldly. "Everyone needs practice. And you, Aris, need to get your emotions under control. You know what you signed up for; we all did. Sacrifices must be made. Grow up and make them."

Aris felt Rachel bristle beside him. They had been close enough for a long time that if one was insulted, the other would fight to defend them.

"I think that's a little harsh," Rachel said, her eyes steely. "First of all, you're implying that growing up means abandoning childish things like 'loyalty' and 'friendship,' which I think is wrong, to say the very least. Personally, if that's growing up, then I'd rather stay the way I am, thanks. _Second_ of all, and let me finish," she added as Janson tried to interrupt, "If we keep killing non-Cranks like this then we're a) no better than them, and b) fucked, basically. There'll be no one left to cure, and we'd have lost the one thing that differentiates uninfected from Cranks."

"One of a few things," Aris added, because Dr. Paige's arguments were so logos-based that he wanted Rachel's to be similarly accurate.

"We're getting off-topic," Janson said. "The problem is _Ellie_ , not doing her _job._ Not our notions of whether humans are better than Cranks."

"The problem _is_ that there shouldn't be a _question_ about that matter at all," Thomas muttered, "But I guess that's a topic for later."

Janson spoke again. "Ellie's scheduled for Removal the day before Doug goes up. That's three months from now. Or—Chris's going up in a week, isn't he? Three months, then, yes. It's also been almost a month since Frankie died, and Ellie still hasn't quite recovered, and that fact in itself, that she's so despondent, is what's bringing the rest of Group A down."

Dr. Paige nodded. "The question is whether to remove her ahead of schedule."

 _I get a feeling it's not a question_ , Rachel sent to Aris mentally.

"Teresa," Dr. Paige said. "You've been unusually quiet this whole time."

Thomas looked at Teresa, who took a breath and spoke. "If it's already decided that she's getting Removed, then…I think there's no point in putting it off for later."

" _What?!_ " Aris shouted. "You're her _friend!_ How can you even be talking like that?!"

"It's gonna happen anyway, Aris!" Teresa yelled back. "I don't want it to—believe me, I _don't._ I just don't want to keep watching her, day in and day out, with the rest of her friends, trying their damnedest to get over the fact that Frankie's _dead_ , while I know what's going to _happen_ to her!"

"What about Max?" Thomas asked. "If we take Ellie out of the equation, doesn't that mean Max has to be removed at the same time?"

"And Max is doing a great job," Aris added.

"Maybe girls are just naturally more optimistic," Rachel said with attitude. Then she snickered. "Nah."

"A good point, actually, Thomas," Dr. Paige said, as if she were surprised. "Group B would have to lose Max early, too."

"Supposedly you've got a plan for that," Aris said. "To cover up the grief?"

"We do, yes," Dr. Paige said. "So, is it settled then? We Remove them both this week."

Aris looked around, stunned, when no one responded. Janson nodded, Teresa stared at her lap, Thomas stared out into space somewhere. Only he and Rachel seemed to understand how inhumane it was.

"Good—"

"Wait!" Aris almost yelled over her. He had to stop himself from standing up with the vehemence of his objection. "Wait. Just—give them both a little more time. Just until the day before Rebecca and Adam go up. Maybe she'll get better. She could get better."

Dr. Paige glared at him down her nose. "Assuming she does, it will only be more tragic, will it not? To recover from the death of a friend and then—"

"It would be better!" Aris interrupted. "Let them have better memories of her before she—she's Removed." He forced himself to use their word for it. _Removed_. How professional that sounded.

Dr. Paige and Janson shared a solemn, knowing glance. Janson glanced at Aris, and then back to Dr. Paige. He gave the smallest nod.

"Very well," Dr. Paige conceded. "Two more months, then."

—

Newt touched Ellie's shoulder to catch her attention, expecting her to jump or at least come back to Earth.

"Ellie?" he asked gently, and only when she heard his voice did her head turn slowly to face his hand. Then she blinked and shook her head slightly. Finally she looked up at him and smiled.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just thinking about stuff." Newt raised an eyebrow skeptically, so she amended her statement. "No. Not really. I'm thinking about stuff."

"Well, I came to remind you that you've got about four more days to think that stuff through fully, because the new Greenie is incoming."

"Ah. Yep. Almost forgot. Gotta put on a legitimate-looking smile, then."

Newt waited, and then prompted. "What, no pun?"

"What pun could I make?"

"Grincoming?"

Ellie smiled and absentmindedly took one of his hands in hers. "The student has become the master."

"Only because the real master isn't putting in any effort."

"It didn't used to require any effort."

Newt blew a hair out of his face and raised both eyebrows. "Oho, just look who's the bloody depressing one now."

"Shuck, sorry."

They sat quietly for a few moments. His hand was still held by hers, and her fingers traced invisible patterns over his skin, almost giving him goosebumps.

"Is there anything I can do, really?" Newt asked finally, covering one of her hands with his other. "Seriously. I know everything's not okay. But even if it's getting there, you shouldn't deal with it yourself."

"I don't know if dealing with it with other people would make a difference."

"It does. Take it from me."

"Consider it taken."

"Good." Newt spun himself around so that he was facing her, then leaned backwards onto the tree trunk and put his fingers together, adopting a mocking interpretation of a psychologist. "So how are you _feeling_?"

Ellie chuckled. "You're cute."

Newt spread his hands. "Humor me."

"Fine. Ok. My days are normal. They're going on like they always have since I can remember. Or, since I became a Runner, anyway. But looking back on it, everything was always a little more colorful. The vines were green and the walls were glistening with those little sparkles you know rocks have, I don't know how to describe it. The Glade was a hundred different colors and sounds. There was always at least something new to be noticed. In here, at least, and not in the Maze or in the Map Room.

"But now…everything seems bleak. The colors are still there, I guess, it's just that they're dull to me. And, I guess I've begun to have decent days. Even good times. The other day, I had a great time for about two hours and then I started looking for Frankie to tell him something, and I had to remember all over again that he's gone."

She paused, but Newt said nothing in an invitation for her to go on.

"I guess it might be easier if our friend group was actually, you know, _supportive_. But Gally and Minho are barely looking at each other, and the rest of us are taking sides. We're falling apart."

"You think it'd be easier if they'd get along? You said you didn't think dealing with it with the help of other people would help."

"You're really into this role, aren't you?"

"I don't know _what_ you mean."

Ellie rolled her eyes up to the sky and shook her head, a smile on her face. "Fine, it's not easier to deal with it in a group environment, but moving on would be a whole lot faster. As it is we're all stuck in the mindset that we don't _want_ to move on."

"You're shuckin' right, there. Gally's convinced that moving on means forgetting him."

"There's another thing—you said that, just now, and I was so exasperated with Gally that I actually didn't care that he's going through the same thing I am. God—that makes me such a bloody horrible shank of a person, doesn't it?"

"Nah, if you were a bloody horrible shank of a person, I _think_ I'd know about it."

"There's things you don't know about me!" Ellie protested, almost indignantly.

"There's things _you_ don't know about you."

"Yeah, fine, that's true." She paused, a remnant-grin on her face. "You're very good at this, you know. Have you talked to the others?"

"No, I thought I'd give the whole thing a test run with my girlfriend."

"Oho, _did_ you now."

"No, wait—"

"Wow, _thanks_ , I feel so appreciated," Ellie said—with a laugh, of course, to show him that she wasn't actually angry.

Newt smiled, his anxious eyes softening.

For a while, they both waited for the other to speak again, but finally Ellie just rested her head on his shoulder and they sat in silence, waiting for shadows to overtake the Glade.

—

Four days later, the Gladers crowded around the Box and leaned in, each wanting to be the first to see the new Greenie, but if they were all being perfectly honest, he wasn't much to look at. After Nick had calmed him down, he introduced himself as Luke. He was confused when he saw Ellie, and spent his first day following her, asking her why she was there if she wasn't a guy. And so, with only mild exasperation, she and Newt explained to him that they thought she was a signal for hope that the Gladers would not remain trapped within the Maze forever, since she was infertile and the Creators might as well have sent up another boy if they didn't mean to send a message. Luke continued to ask questions, and finally they called Fred and Neil over to introduce to the new Greenie. The three seemed to have similar intellectual curiosities, and anyway, the last Greenie (whose name was Chris) was completely uninterested in helping this new boy.

Newt, meanwhile, was still determined to reignite his group's friendship. Over the last month, they had sort of drifted off and retreated into themselves—some sitting by themselves at meals, some never speaking anymore, some stating that they hated each other now. He and Ellie were guilty of the same phenomenon, he was afraid.

He began to go around, talking to each individual. He had started with Ellie, and then had tried Finn, who was recovering faster than the others anyway because he hadn't known Frankie quite as long. Finn had very much disliked the last month not only because of his grief but also because he loved his friends very much and didn't like the idea of drifting apart from them. He was also fun-loving and mischievous and not having friends who were there for him was putting a damper on his mood all the time. Newt laughed when Finn told him this.

Fred was the next person to go to. Fred was lucky enough to work with the Slicers, which meant he'd had Bark the silent dog to comfort him on days when he was particularly low. Fred calmly listened to Newt's proposal and agreed wholeheartedly, listing additional psychological and just regular-logical reasons why reconnecting with loved ones was beneficial. He agreed to begin socializing with their friends again.

Neil had never really opened up anyway, and Frankie's death actually hadn't had much effect on him. But he still followed Fred around, so he was basically set.

Gally, Ben, Stephen, Dave, and Alex were all Builders, so they had never really been separated, but the air around the Homestead was either tense or glum, depending on when you went. Newt began to visit them after he finished his jobs as a Track-hoe and launched tentative jokes in attempts to loosen their stubborn melancholy. Finally, he began to get Justin to play Ellie's guitar—Justin was one of the few who could play the guitar, he recalled—and, after a few days of these combined efforts, the Builders began to laugh a little more, lightening the mood.

When Ellie was in the Glade, he asked her to start teaching him songs again. He had never finished learning the one she had begun to show him. He had some things memorized, of course, but then there was the part when both were singing something different at the same time, and he just couldn't seem to get that right. Ellie, ultimately, was glad to start again on that project, which had been her idea in the first place.

The SteBen relationship had taken a hit after Frankie's death, as well, but the two were working on building themselves back up to how they had been before.

Minho and Gally were the last two to tackle. They had fallen out with each other even before their great loss. Newt was convinced, however, that they could still reconcile if both were willing. Newt went to Minho, figuring Ellie stood a better chance at getting through to Gally.

"'Sup, Newt," Minho said casually as Newt sat down with him in the Map Room.

"Hey," Newt replied, overthinking every word he'd planned out. "How's it going?"

"Guess." Minho gave him a look that said, _Really?_

"Right."

"How's it going with you?"

"Decently, I guess," Newt said. "I've been trying to get the group back together. Us being apart is doing nobody any bloody good."

"We're hardly apart," Minho didn't look at him. "We're shuckin' trapped in here with the shanks."

"You know what I mean, shuckface," Newt fired back. "We don't sit together anymore. We barely talk to each other more than a few words in passing."

"We're in mourning," Minho explained. "No klunk that we're not acting the same now."

"Yeah, okay, Minho, you're right! Isolating ourselves is a _great_ idea. Very healing, very productive. Incredibly bloody helpful." Newt folded his arms and stared at Minho with an eyebrow raised. "Brilliant idea."

Minho sighed. "Fine. What do they others say?"

"Sounds like they're all willing to meet up again. I haven't talked to Gally, but I bet if the rest of us showed up, he would too."

"Probably not if I'm there," Minho smirked. "You got a time and place?"

"Literally the exact times and the exact place we used to meet at."

"I don't need this sass, Salamander."

Newt got up and began to walk out. "Yes, ya do." He winked and then slipped out of the room, followed by a flying wad of paper Minho threw at him.

—

Ellie went to talk to Gally, as Newt asked her to (she was a sucker for his puppy eyes), and found him pulling up blades of grass just outside the Homestead while everyone else ate dinner at the picnic tables.

"Hey, kid," she said, nudging him with a foot.

"Hey."

"Not feeling like eating with us?"

Gally shrugged. "I guess not really."

"You should. I don't know about you but I sure miss our friend group."

"We're all still here," Gally pointed out.

"Oh, you know what I mean, shank." She sat down with him and helped him uproot grass. He glanced at her suspiciously for a moment before giving up his hatred of grass to ask a question.

"Ok, what's this about?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"Recovery," Ellie said simply. "I'm ashamed to say it, but I think we've been bringing the Glade down."

"Yeah."

"I think we have to pick ourselves back up, Gally."

"And your plan for this is…what, just start sitting together again? Have some group therapy?"

Ellie raised an eyebrow. "If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

"My better idea is just leaving me alone. Go build the group back without me."

"So, what, you're just going to sit here alone and pull up grass?"

"Yes."

It was Ellie's turn to fold her arms. "No."

"What?"

" _No_. I reject that."

"Do you, now."

"Yeah. You can bloody well kiss my grass, 'right? I'm not going to accept your chosen path of forever-aloneness."

"So if I don't show up, you're just gonna give up on your whole endeavor, is that it?"

"It's not the same group without you, ya bloody shank, like it or not. I _want_ us to heal. We've tried to deal with a loss unlike anything we've known before, and I'm sick of trying to deal with it alone. _You're_ just stuck having fallen over, and you're not even trying to get back up. Is this what Frankie wanted you to do?"

"What the hell does it matter what Frankie would want?" Gally exploded.

"It matters because you cared about him!" Ellie yelled. "You still do! You want us to honor his memory, well, if he would want us to move on, why can't you?"

Gally responded by groaning in frustration and burying his head in his hands. "You know, I bet in the real world people were allowed more time to grieve."

"Sadly, we don't have that luxury," Ellie snapped. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry. Listen, I'm having a hard time, too. I'm having a harder time empathizing with anyone, and I always feel _angry_. I don't know why, and I don't _want_ to feel like this anymore. I don't want to let the Maze ruin me like it's trying to ruin us all, and I don't want you bloody broken either." She watched him a moment before continuing, "So if you don't want to try this with us, I guess I can't force you. But…"

She wasn't getting a response, so she gave up with an exhale and began to stand up.

"Okay," Gally said, stopping her. Seeing her surprise, he shrugged and said, "I'll play along. Why not, right?"

"Why not, indeed. Good that." Ellie held out her hand to help him to his feet, and then they set off towards their picnic table.

Everyone else was already there, and as Ellie and Gally sat, they looked around into familiar faces tinted with awkwardness. For a few moments they looked around uncomfortably and smiled.

Ellie's heart sank as she pressed against Newt anxiously. After all they'd been through, and how they'd started…This was what they'd turned into.

"So," Minho spoke up. "How about the weather?"

And after a moment of nothing, he was rewarded by a ripple of giggles that swept around the table, which was quickly followed by a louder wave. And then the ice was broken. Chris got along with them all pretty well once they began to speak again. He was a lot like how Gally had been when he'd first been introduced to the Glade. Curious. And once he realized he could ask questions without being snapped at, he let loose, and the more experienced Gladers laughed at how naive he sounded. Frankie was far from forgotten, but at least his presence in their minds wasn't as persistently melancholy.

"Is that clear enough for you, Greenie?"

Ellie interjected, "Chris-tle clear."

She hadn't realized how much she'd missed the groans.

Still, things felt tentative. Ellie couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt like everyone was hesitating to say exactly what was on their minds. Aside from Chris. But something was off. She glanced around, and then realized she was looking for Frankie. It was his voice that was missing, his bulk, his face. Absent.

Newt could read her like a book, and leaned over while the rest were distracted with Ben and Stephen's antics.

"It won't happen overnight," he said. "We've taken a big step, but you need to be patient, okay? It will work."

"I know. Thanks."

—

Newt rolled over at night, when he knew neither of them were asleep, so that he could look at her face. He tapped her shoulder so she would roll over, too. When she did, their faces were inches from each other.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

Ellie smirked. "Yes. No bloody question. Of course I do."

"Why?"

"You mean, apart from your incredible good looks?"

"Yeah."

"Honestly, Salamander, does anyone ever know _why_?"

"I dunno. Probably.

"Okay, I'll give it a go. I love your personality. I love you for being warm and understanding. I love you for being so shucking emotional all the time. I love that you noticed my lack of puns and tried to help with it. I love your puppy dog eyes. And on top of that, I think I love that you've been just as weak as any of us. You've given up hope more times than the rest of us, I think, and you keep going and keep trying and you get everyone else to do the same. I love that, and I love you so much it hurts."

A barely noticeable tear (which Ellie noticed) slipped out from his eye. She smiled.

"Do you think this is just a teenage hormonal phase?" he asked.

"Definitely," Ellie said. "Look at us, a bunch of teens trapped in a Maze where there seems to be no way out, no adults to tell us what to do, and death is imminent—I guarantee the hormones are pumping like crazy. But to that I say, why should it matter? Personally," she moved closer to him, so that even less space separated their faces "I need you, hormones or not."

Teresa felt like she shouldn't be watching this. Especially not with Thomas and Chuck next to her. She became aware of Thomas's body heat next to her arm. She needed to get him alone—he was being too quiet, and she wanted to talk.

"This is some PG stuff," she said, to set up a joke. "Chuck, you sure you don't need some parental guidance?

"Yeah," he said, squishing his own cheeks together. "Mommy? Where babies come from?"

Teresa laughed. "Isn't it past your bed time?"

Chuck folded his arms. "No."

Thomas raised his eyebrow at her, so she didn't push. They'd just have to do this telepathically.

 _Tom?_

 _Yeah? What?_

 _Are you okay with this?_

 _With what?_ He glanced at her questioningly.

 _With watching them like this. When we know what's going to happen to them in just a few months._

 _Teresa, I haven't been okay with watching these things for a long time. You know how uncomfortable this all makes me. I'd much rather no one goes into the Maze at all, but we both know Dr. Paige wouldn't allow that._ With these words came a wave of guilt—Thomas's. He still felt bad about putting the other kids into the Maze. He hadn't been ready for the sacrifice, and he still wasn't used to it. Didn't he get it? Sacrifices had to be made. The Flare had to be stopped.

"Are they going to kiss?" Chuck asked loudly, fascinated by the moment Ellie and Newt were having. Teresa and Thomas jumped.

"Okay, you know what?" Teresa said, and pulled up another beetle blade feed. "As your parent I am uncomfortable with you learning this stuff."

"What?!"

"Don't ruin his dreams," Thomas said, pulling up Newt and Ellie again. "You know he ships them."

"Plus, when's the next time I'm gonna get to watch people kiss?"

Teresa threw her hands up and let Chuck keep watching.

 _Tom, I think they should be removed earlier._

 _What?!_

 _They should be!_

 _How can you say that?_

 _I don't want to watch them recover just to see them torn apart again. Dr. Paige was right, it would be worse for them to be happy when she's Removed._

 _I wish you people would stop using that word_ , Thomas sent her, along with a wave of anger.

 _Grow up, Tom. It's just what it's called in this case. She's not doing her job—_

 _She's trying to, Teresa! I can't believe you want her taken away just because_ you _don't want to watch her be happy again. It would be more painful if she's happy when she's Removed, maybe, but have you forgotten Dr. Paige's oh-so-special way to wipe away the pain?_

 _I haven't forgotten that, Tom._

Something in her tone made him ask, _Do you know something about it?_

Teresa hesitated. _No. I don't._ It was best to keep Thomas in the dark about some of these things. If he knew the plan, he'd go running to Dr. Paige and get himself and Teresa in trouble. He wouldn't even think about how it was a good plan. He'd be too upset about Ellie, and he'd bring his outdated morals into the situation.

 _I know you know something, Teresa,_ he sent. He felt resigned, like he was about to sigh. _I wish you trusted me enough to tell me. They're my friends, too. I only want what's best for them. We both do._

Teresa thought to herself, _I want what's best for mankind. My friends have nothing to do with this._ She almost sent these words to him, but instead she cut off their connection.

Thomas glanced at her with distrust in his eyes, and she pretended she didn't see it.

"I knew it!" Chuck yelled, clapping. "Kiss, kiss, kiss! Newt and El-lie, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

Knowing it would make Thomas angry, Teresa smiled along and joined in, "First comes love, then comes marriage…"

—

Later that night, once Thomas and Chuck were already in bed, Teresa crept through dark hallways to Dr. Paige's room and knocked on the door. Paige hadn't been expecting her, so it took a minute for her to open up.

"Teresa! Come in. What's the matter?"

"It's about our talk, a week ago, about Project Pandora's Removal."

"Yes?"

"Do you trust my opinion?"

"Yes, Teresa, I do, of course I do. You're the brightest child I've ever known—smart enough to put aside your emotions and make unbiased decisions. You're one of very few who really understand the importance of what we're doing here. Don't tell Thomas all this, by the way."

Teresa smiled broadly at the compliment. _And Thomas thinks he's her favorite._ "You know I won't. Anyway, I was thinking about the Removal. I know Aris and Thomas both want her to have another two months, and the plan before that was that she had until Doug went up, which would give her three more months."

"Yes, I know all the possibilities. You think she should have more than three months?"

"I think she should only have one more."

Dr. Paige tilted her head in surprise. "This, coming from the one who sent her guitar up to her. Explain yourself."

Teresa flinched upon remembering her punishment following the guitar incident. "I'm sorry about that insubordination. I think, since we just had the conversation about whether to Remove her at all, that she's obviously doing something wrong. We put her into the Glade because we wanted her to bring positivity there, and now that we've seen what just one death can do to her, I think it's too risky keeping her there much longer. Knowing what can go wrong in just a month…any number of things could happen to break her heart again."

Dr. Paige shook her head. "I know…and we took such great care not to dampen her spirit before…" She narrowed her eyes at Teresa. "Are you sure about this? You and she were very close."

Teresa massaged the palm of her hand. "You said you trust me to make unbiased decisions. The facts are clear. They got the message that they won't be there forever, but now Newt is doing her job better than _she_ is. It won't be any great loss to their psyches if we Remove her now. And anyway, it might be a great opportunity to study Newt and compare his killzone's reaction to the Immune subjects' scans."

"Hmm," Dr. Paige turned away and didn't speak for a while as she turned on a desk lamp to shuffle through some papers. Teresa fidgeted, unsure of whether she'd convinced the new Chancellor. Her final answer didn't solidify anything, either. "I will consult the Psychs. Thank you for your take on the issue, Teresa. Thank you for coming to me apart from the other Elites. I know it's hard to say anything like this in front of your friends, especially when they all hold different opinions."

Teresa neglected to tell her that Aris, Rachel, and she were hardly close, with the amount of time they'd been together. Almost no time at all—she and Thomas only saw the Group B Elites whenever there was a big meeting.

"Now you should get some sleep," Dr. Paige said. "I'll consider what you've said."

Teresa nodded respectfully and left, back into the dark hallways. Briefly she thought of what Thomas might think of her, if he ever found out. Well, he'd find out. He would, in just a few days. When Ellie was Removed. Teresa shrugged and told herself there was no use worrying about his opinion.

It was no longer up to her.

—

Running the Maze had been a whole lot of different things in Ellie's mind. Terrifying, then exciting, at first, when she hadn't actually been in it. Then frustrating, endless. Feared. Exhausting. It had housed a panic attack just a few months ago. It had been the place of her greatest triumph—surviving a Griever. Now it seemed still—disturbingly peaceful. Running cleared her mind, or at least organized it. There seemed to be a lot to think about recently. Her friends, Frankie, herself. She'd been trying to sort through her recovered memories. Their purpose there, in the Maze. The Outside, and the Creators. What had her role in this been?

And how the bloody hell could they get out?

On top of that, she wondered what she'd been like outside the Glade. Had she been totally different?

Her shoulder, where the Griever had stabbed her, began to ache, like the mental effort was a strain on her physical being, as well.

"Shuck off," she told herself. "Don't be a wimp."

Her old wound stubbornly persisted, so Ellie slowed herself down a bit.

She was looking forward to Chris's Greenbean Gala. Having not looked forward to anything for a long while, she was worried it wouldn't live up to what she wanted. There were only a few more days to prepare, so as she ran through the Maze she plotted how she could make it perfect. She already had a few ideas on puns that required very specific setups. She'd been storing them.

 _Mark_ my words—for Mark the Slicer, who she was never around. _Han_ shake, for Han the Track-hoe. Maybe she'd ask Newt to use that one. I can't _Stan_ it, for Stan the Bricknick. Ugh. Why must she think of puns for people who she didn't hang out with?

One, of course, was so legitimately bad that she'd just had to use it the day before. Without explanation, in a lull in her friends' conversation, she'd pointed to Neil's leg and said, " _Knee-l_." It was bad.

Newt was waiting for her when she got back, as he always was.

"What's New-t?" she asked.

"Have you used that before?"

"I sure hope not. Sorry, if I have. My memory's not what it used to be, these days," she joked. Newt snickered.

"Well, what's _new_ is, thank you, I was wondering if we should start recruiting new people for our picnic table. Billy used to sit with us some."

"Billy's the only one you've thought of?"

"Well, yeah. It is a _new_ idea, as mentioned before."

"Everyone's already got their own friend groups, haven't they? By this point."

"Yeah. But why should it be segregated by friend groups? We're all in the same bloody pickle."

"If you want new people, why not pickNick?"

"That's what I—oh. Picnic. Nick. Oh." Newt made a face. "You're just on a roll today, aren't you?"

Ellie snapped her fingers and then made fingerguns, winking at him. "I know, I'm the worst. And yet."

Newt laughed. "And yet I still love you."

—

Ellie was sitting on the picnic table strumming her guitar a day later when the Elites were called into a meeting with Chancellor Paige, Janson, and a few Psychs.

"Good afternoon," Chancellor Paige said. "Firstly, we are in a rush to prepare for upcoming events. There's a lot of programming to be done, several things to be engineered, and speeches and emails to be planned. Thus, we'll keep this short, and I'm afraid this meeting is more to inform you all of plans that are already set in stone; less of a discussion.

"Project Pandora subjects Ellie and Max will be Removed from the Mazes in twenty-five days, the day before the next subjects are inserted into the Glade. This decision is not up for debate. I have been presented with reasoning behind both keeping them in for a few months longer and behind removing them this very instant. I know the Elites hold differing opinions on this matter, but all of you ought rest assured that I alone made this decision."

Thomas looked at Teresa, eyes wide and betrayed. _You did this, didn't you?_

 _Come on, Tom. She just said she made this decision on her own._

 _But you influenced her, didn't you? You went to her and told her what you thought._

 _Stop blaming everything on me! When will you learn to trust WICKED? They know what they're doing, Tom. And besides, this won't be the worst thing that's happened to our friends. We've seen worse._

A wave of fury hit Teresa from Thomas's end, and she called out, _Tom?_ She waited a moment. _Thomas!_

 _Fuck off, Teresa._ A phrase he'd probably learned from Minho.

And, as the Chancellor continued her speech, their telepathic connection was cut off.

—

Back in his room, Thomas was seething. How could Teresa be so indifferent to their friends? Here was his best friend in the world, seeming not to care about how Ellie would feel, how Newt would feel…

He just couldn't understand her anymore.

Once upon a time, they had both been young. They'd glimpsed each other in a hall. Teresa had been dragged away from him, and she'd called out, "Someday we'll be bigger."

Here they were. Bigger. And she had thrown her lot in with WICKED all the way. Thomas knew he, too, had no choice but to believe in the cure they worked for. But at least he felt conflicted about what they were doing. Teresa seemed to make excuses for them no matter what they did, who they killed, who they kidnapped.

Back in her room, Teresa was seething. How could Thomas be so indifferent to the world? Here was her best friend in the world, seeming not to care about the success of the Trials.

The Trials were the _only_ thing that mattered. They _had_ to succeed, no matter what. Teresa would do anything for WICKED if the doctors here could find a cure. She had seen too much pain in the outside world to act like Thomas was. He was stuck living in a nicer world, which no longer existed.

Once upon a time, he had understood. His father had caught the Flare. His own mother had given him up so that WICKED could prevent something like that from happening again. Why couldn't he see? So many people were dying of the Flare, or from Cranks. The world _had_ to be rebuilt. She couldn't see it from his perspective. She just…couldn't.

To be honest, she missed Ellie. She loved Thomas, but sometimes he just couldn't get her, for whatever reason. Ellie had always been a fresh opinion, different from Thomas's pigheadedness. Ellie had usually agreed with her; WICKED was good, and some things needed to be done. But, also, she'd continued to help Teresa understand Thomas's points. Ellie was more eloquent than Thomas was when it came to expressing arguments, especially when given time (which she commonly used to find a song that fit whatever situation Teresa needed help with). And Teresa didn't always think Ellie was right, but at least she could respect her.

"Somebody's _got_ to be the bad guy," Ellie had once told her. "It's necessary, for balance purposes. That's what WICKED is—the bad guy. They're doing some wrong things, but for the right reason in the end. Thomas is focused on the wrong things because he doesn't want to lose the ability to tell wrong from right."

Teresa didn't believe anything done for the right reason could possibly be wrong, by the very nature of it. She had told Ellie as much, and Ellie had shrugged.

"Listen, believe what you want to believe; I can't stop you. You asked for help understanding your boyfriend, and I've done my best."

"He's not my boyfriend," Teresa remembered saying.

"I know. I don't ship it, anyway, with the amount you two bicker. God, if you two didn't like each other so much you'd be mortal enemies." Ellie had winked and turned her focus back on whatever she'd been doing at the time. "I was only teasing, and you know it."

Teresa reached out to Thomas in her mind. She'd tried twice since the meeting, to no avail. _Third time's the charm_ , she told herself.

 _Tom? Please answer me._

Nothing.

 _Tom, I know you can hear me. You never go to sleep this early, especially not after an argument. Please, you're my best friend._

She waited for another minute without getting anything, so her shoulders slumped and she fell backwards onto her bed.

 _I've been thinking about Ellie, Tom._

The venom in his response made her flinch, like he'd physically spat into her face. _Yeah, me too. About how you betrayed her! Yeah, what happy memories to mull over, am I right? Hurray, team! Friendship!_

 _Tom, come on,_ Teresa sent. _She believes in the cure as much as I do. Whatever WICKED says is right, she'd go along with._

 _Right now I'd say Ellie doesn't give a damn what WICKED says. Right now I'd say she thinks WICKED is pretty horrible._

 _No, that's what_ you'd _say,_ Teresa said angrily. _She's not you, Thomas._

 _Look at what we've done to her, Teresa. We've trapped her, killed her friends, and used her. No, she's not me, but she's not exactly herself, either. She's someone new, remember? We erased Ellie._

 _If that's how you feel about all this, then none of the people in the Maze are your friends, either. Not Newt, not Minho, not Alby. They've never even met you. Why should you feel so strongly about them?_

Thomas was silent.

 _Listen, Tom. I feel strongly about Ellie, and you feel strongly about all of them. Of course we do; they're our friends. But some things need to happen. We've put in too much work by this point to half-ass it now. The sooner you get on board, the better. I'm going to go to sleep now. Goodnight._ Teresa sent a smile to Thomas, and waited for his response.

 _Goodnight._

 _—_

Chris's Greenbean Gala was fantastic (Finn-tastic, in fact, as Ellie put it).

Ellie asked her friends all to promise to put their all into the party. She wanted party spirit, jokes, laughing, happiness, constant talking. Just one day to put aside all downers—that was what this day had started as, and shuck it, she was going to keep it that way.

The Gladers rediscovered paper planes that day, and began to toss them around willy-nilly. Minho had to defend the Map Room to prevent too much paper from being stolen, so once all the paper planes had crash-landed (or, in one case, spiked out of the air by Alby, who had jumped up to intercept one) that was it. Ben's paper plane lasted a decidedly shorter amount of time than everyone else's, since he had made it lopsided and it kept going into what Ellie called "TailsBen! Tailspin! Get it?"

It was a welcome respite from…well, everything. The past month had dragged on and on and _on,_ or so it seemed. It felt like a year since Frankie died, and the pain had been there every day. Finally, it felt like enough was enough.

Ellie danced through the day, forcing herself to be happy to be alive. She made all the puns she could think of.

Finn made a long, repetitive, _very_ cheesy speech about how happy he was to know them all, and finally Ellie asked, "Are you Finn-ished?"

Minho and Gally almost got into an argument, but Nick showed up to light the bonfire, and Ellie shoved between the two boys, pointing at the leader and calling, "Right in the Nick of time!"

Someone called out jokingly for her to play a 'classic' on her guitar and she pointed to the overgrown walls. "Sure," she replied. "I'll just get out my vine-yl records."

Hank sneezed once, and she descended upon him asking if he needed a Hank-erchief.

Everyone groaned and booed right along, as they were meant to, but to be honest, they absolutely _loved_ Ellie's puns. They'd missed them.

It really looked like life in the Glade might _actually_ be improving on days like this.

By this point, Ellie had sung so many of the Gladers' favorite songs that they were humming the tunes to themselves long into the next week. She'd given up on teaching Newt the duet she'd thought of mostly because the lyrics, upon closer inspection, were really sad. The cheerful melody and tempo had deceived her. She and Newt laughed about it.

"Yeah, that'd really cheer us all right up."

"I dunno why you say that sarcastically— _Save me, I'm drowning so deep in the darkness,_ and _There's smoke blinding us with goodbyes—_ sounds really happy go lucky to me."

Their friend group did heal. They started sneaking "sleepovers" for which they would place their bedrolls close so as to stay up to talk without waking everyone else up. They all started to enjoy these late-night talks. Sometimes the topics were deep, but more times they were all just taking turns roasting each other.

They woke Nick up with their giggling once, and he glared at them until they quieted down.

Even Minho and Gally were seen talking to each other once, when no one else was with them. Ellie nudged Gally and mentioned it once and he elbowed her in the ribs.

"We just hate each other in secret," he muttered, but there was a smile on his face and it was hard to take him seriously. So Ellie gave him a hug.

That was another thing—they all began to be more physical with each other. They'd hug each other almost every day like they hadn't seen one another for months. In Ben's opinion, Ellie gave the best hugs.

"What, are you the resident hug connoisseur?" Minho demanded.

"Maybe I am!"

And that was how Minho ended up picking Ben up in a bear hug and parading him around, while he begged to get put down.

Chris, the newest Track-hoe, started counting down days until he was no longer Greenie. He couldn't _wait_ not to be the least experienced.

"Now you need to promise to be the warmest, most welcoming presence in all the Glade," Ben coached. "Unlike Neil, here." He reached over and mussed Neil's hair. Neil made a face and fended him off by flailing a hand at Ben.

"The rest of us will shamelessly tease him," Stephen added.

"But you gotta make sure he doesn't do anything stupid," Ellie said. "He's gonna have a lot of questions and the majority of us he'll think are too high-and-mighty to answer them."

"What are the main three rules, go!" Newt quizzed.

"Don't leave the Glade, don't hurt another Glader, and always do your part!" Chris recited, snapping into a salute. "SIR YES SIR."

"Beetle blades?"

"Little silvery camera bugs. The Creators use them to watch us. Don't touch them."

"Good. Who are the Creators?"

"WICKED. They stuck us in here, made the Maze, and toy with us."

"How many ways have we tried to get out?"

"We've tried to go back down in the Box, tried running the Maze, tried climbing the vines on the walls. Making a ladder wouldn't work—the walls are too high and we don't have enough stuff. The Maze is our best bet."

"How do you explain Keepers, go!" Gally put in, winking at him.

"The leaders of the jobs! Runners, Slicers, Cooks, Track-hoes, Builders, Med-jacks, Baggers, Sloppers, and Bricknicks!"

"Gatherings?"

"Group therapy sessions for the Keepers!"

Everyone rolled their eyes and laughed. Minho and Gally, both Keepers, folded their arms and chorused, "Touché."

"I daresay you're ready," Ellie complimented him. "You'll do a better bloody job than Ben here did for me."

"Hey!" Ben exclaimed, offended. Ellie made a heart with her hands and smiled cheekily.

—

It was less than a week until the new Greenie came up, and Ellie couldn't find her guitar. She'd searched the Homestead twice, and bothered the hell out of Clint and Jeff, who were bandaging a cut on Fred's finger. She looked for Mark and Justin, who could play guitar, too. Neither of them had it.

She enlisted Newt's help, and then the rest of her friends. It wasn't in the Homestead, the Deadheads (why the shuck would it be there, anyway?), the Bloodhouse, or the Farm.

"Well, the last place to look is in the Maze," Minho said as a joke, but Ellie was too upset to acknowledge it. What had happened to her guitar? It couldn't have just gotten up and walked off—wait.

Beetle blades.

She noticed one watching her as she went to eat dinner. Deciding that the beetle blades had probably stolen her guitar because the Creators told them to, she flipped it off, putting as much hatred into her glare as she could. The beetle blade skittered away.

"You can still sing," Newt tried to comfort her. "You don't need your guitar to know how to sing. You can still remember all your songs."

"Yeah," Ellie said, picking at her food. "But it was still my guitar. We're gonna miss it at the next Greenbean Gala." The thought of a party without her guitar was almost unthinkable. Newt put his arm around her.

"It'll be okay," he said. "The Creators are obviously spoilsports who hate anything good and pure in this world."

That made her smile. "Yeah. Shuck 'em."

"It is disappointing, though," Ben said. "Should we have a memorial service for your guitar?"

Fred was already planning a painting to comfort Ellie. It would have to be small—very small. He was very close to being out of paint—painfully close. _Hah, Paintfully close._ He would have to do it very carefully, very precisely, and make no mistakes.

It took him just one night to finish it, after a little while of planning colors and mixing the pigments he had left.

And, just like that, once the painting was finished, his paints were gone, too. He smiled ruefully and stashed the empty plastic container under his sleeping bag as a keepsake. The next morning was the day before the next Greenie arrived. Chris was almost bursting with excitement. Fred pulled Newt aside and handed him a small square of spare wood.

"What's this?" Newt asked, turning it over. When he saw what it was, he gasped and smiled widely. "Aw, Freddie! You've drawn her the world's tiniest guitar!"

"Yes. I thought she might like a little ornament to remember her guitar by."

"That's so bloody sweet! She'll love it."

"I want you to give it to her," Fred said.

"What? Why?"

"Because you're her boyfriend. It's weird if I just go up to her and give her this. She'd think I have a thing for her."

"I guarantee you she would not think that."

"Still. _I'd_ feel weird about it."

"Fine. I'll do it, but you're wrong if you think I'm not giving you all the bloody credit in the world."

"That's okay. I'm glad you think she'll like it."

"Of course she will, Fred."

—

Ellie's mind wandered as she ran the Maze. She was wondering why the Creators had wanted to steal her guitar. Where'd they taken it? Maybe they'd just gotten sick of hearing the same songs over and over.

"Give me back my bloody memory, then, and I'll give you a variety of different songs," she said spitefully to the rock walls and floor.

Or maybe they just wanted to play the guitar for themselves.

It was a day just like any other day. Wake up, put the _fast_ in breakfast, head out into the Maze. Run, run, run. Eat lunch, take as long as possible. Run. Run some more. Make sassy comments at the rock as it passed her by. Mentally practice different ways to greet the new Greenbean. Check watch. Check watch again, because the first time, she wasn't paying attention.

She realized how late it was, sighed, and began to head back. Would it kill her mind to pay attention just once? She could remember the twists and turns of the Maze, and yet couldn't seem to check her watch successfully. Maybe she needed a timer—an alarm or something that beeped when she was out too late. Minho might know how to set that up on her watch.

She was cutting it close, but she knew she'd make it back in time. It wasn't _that_ close. She'd made it back from later runs than this.

She made it to the long corridor from which she could see directly into the Glade. Newt was standing at the doors, as usual, and he waved to her. Something was in his hand, and he was grinning like crazy. Ellie's heart warmed a little, seeing him there. It was something about the little everyday things he did for her.

Suddenly, without warning, a cloud crossed his face. The smile dropped from his face and, with panic in his voice, he yelled, " _Ellie_!"

She caught her breath. What was wrong? Something in his voice stopped her in her tracks, and with her heartbeat mounting in anticipation, she turned around. A rush of adrenaline hit her, making her hands tremble. Even after a full day of running, she was ready to sprint.

There was a Griever at the end of the corridor.

It was standing stock still, and at first she thought she'd hallucinated it. Then, it took a few rolling, grotesque steps forward and screeched. It was no hallucination.

"Run!" Newt yelled at her, but Ellie checked her watch. If she ran, the Griever would follow her into the Glade. It was already advancing steadily on her, like it knew she wouldn't make a break for it. She glanced back at the Glade, where Newt was, where her friends were. The Doors wouldn't close in time, and when they did, they'd all be trapped in there with a monster of the Maze. She kept staring at it, and took a step back. Her fingers curled and uncurled anxiously.

She remembered when she and Gally had almost been caught by a Griever. She'd led it away from the Glade while he escaped.

She spun around to look for Newt, but some force took control of her body and turned her back around to stare at the Griever. She tried to snap out of it, but she couldn't seem to move her own arms or legs. Her body was no longer her own.

She heard her mouth say, "The Doors won't close in time. If you don't lead it away, it will _kill_ your friends." And just like that, the force was gone. Those words hadn't been hers. They couldn't have been.

Ellie looked around frantically, disoriented. "Who are you?" she yelled, but no one responded. The Griever was getting closer. Behind her, Newt was screaming for the Baggers. They had weapons. They could defend the Glade. There were weapons that Minho knew about. Just a few feet in front of her was a passage that branched off to the left. She could lead it through there.

The Griever's mechanical legs slammed into the rock and pulled itself forward.

Ellie's mouth said, "Choose."

Minho joined Newt at the Doors, wielding a large knife. "ELLIE! HURRY!"

They couldn't hold off a Griever. They just couldn't, not with everything they had. It would make it in, kill her, kill Newt, kill _Ben_ , and everyone else—

Ellie couldn't let that happen.

"Choose."

She turned around, saw her friends in the Glade, saw the plain terror on Newt's face. He knew what was coming, and it was breaking both of their hearts. A tear slipped from Ellie's eye. Eight months ago she had arrived in the Glade and been afraid that the doors would close on her while she was in the Maze. She'd been terrified of that. Eight months ago she had met Newt.

Her whole life was in that Glade. Everything she had experienced.

The words _Time's up_ appeared in her mind.

The Griever roared and began to charge forward. The Doors began to close more slowly than she had ever known them to.

Ellie wanted to yell at Newt, tell him everything she felt. She'd tried, a few weeks ago. What could she say, what could she say? There was no time to think. Barely even time for anything at all. Would he even hear her over the sound of the Doors? She had to try.

"Stay alive for me!"

Newt's world fell apart as Ellie sprinted away. Into the Maze. He leapt forward, only to be pulled back by Alby, who had arrived just in time to stop him.

"No!" he bellowed, his voice breaking, his heart in pure agony. "Ellie!"

He wasn't thinking clearly enough to shove his friend away. Alby had his arm wrapped around Newt's chest and was pulling him back, into the Glade. Where Ellie no longer was. Newt writhed and tried to push forward. He had to get to Ellie, to help her—shuck it, at least he wanted to be there, running with her.. He glimpsed her disappearing, followed by the Griever, and then the Doors slammed shut.

He screamed.

—

Ellie remembered being told that no one had ever survived a night in the Maze, but she was bloody well going to try. Plus, it wasn't even all that dark out yet.

At least she had a plan. Last time, she'd survived the Griever by dropping it off the Cliff. All she had to do was make it there again. Pull of the same risky maneuver. Easy as pie. Easy as a blurry, fast-paced, life-threatening pie.

In one heart-stopping moment, she slipped. She was trying to turn right at a corner, but she fell and skidded to the wall. The rock below her tore through her running pants and ripped at her skin. She slammed into the wall and stopped, dazed for an instant before galvanizing her muscles into action. The Griever rocketed into the same wall just over her head. One of its mechanical legs was thrown into her side and knocked the wind out of her as it rammed her into the wall again.

She shoved the Griever's appendage away and was running again before it had scrambled up. It shrieked as it caught sight of her, and she forced herself to go faster.

Only a few more turns until she got to the Cliff, but despite her very slim head start, the Griever was gaining on her. She could make it. She could. Just a few more turns.

An unbelievable bulk hit her as she passed a corridor. Her head hit rock and made her dim world spin furiously. Slimy flesh pressed against her face, smothering her; she'd had little air when it had hit her, and she now felt like she was suffocating. She couldn't push it away.

She would die in the Maze. She couldn't take out two.

The Griever lifted itself off of her and she gasped for air, sobbing and rolling to her hands and knees. She couldn't move even to _try_ to crawl away, and even if she could, where would she go? She wouldn't be able to go fast enough.

A three-pronged claw slammed into Ellie's back and she choked on her scream of pain. Tears fell from her eyes onto the dirty, bloody ground. The Grievers tore her backpack off—she heard the fabric rip behind her as they picked it away with mechanical spikes and gears. Then the claw slammed into her again and she felt her skin separate for the sharp edges. The claw's talons curled around her chest and the next thing she knew, she was dangling several feet off the ground like a rag-doll.

Below her, the Grievers screamed and ran into each other as they ran down the corridor, dragging their prey with them. With every step, its clawed arm sliced a little more into Ellie's torso and she clenched her teeth in pain.

Through tear-soaked eyes Ellie saw that they had brought her to the Cliff. Funny how she made it here anyway, that she'd been headed exactly where they wanted to go in the first place.

The Grievers raced frantically towards the edge of the drop-off and, one after the other, threw themselves off.

Ellie finally managed a single, terrified scream.


	12. You Have Not Returned to Smile Again

**A/N: Alright, so...I know it's been a really long time. Don't worry, it's not over. It's just taking me a while to write the chapters now; I've run out of pre-written chapters that I had when I started posting this. Plus a number of other things are going on aside from this, including but not limited to school, homework, college searching, and my own personal original story.**

 **Sorry about not having posted earlier. I admit I had chances to work on this chapter that I just didn't take...**

 **Anyway, shout out to all of yo** **u who are still here and rooting for Ellie (and also for that Guest reviewer who said this fanfic made you appreciate your friends more). Sorry for keeping you all waiting!**

 **Also, a profanity warning.**

 **Edit 7/30/18: Trigger Warnings - Suicidal Tendencies, Minor Medical Drug Use**

* * *

 _Stay alive for me!_

Those had been Ellie's last words to him, and to her friends in the Glade.

Alby pulled Newt away as the others who had been at the Doors ran screaming to the other Gladers to tell them what had happened. Minho roared at the Doors and pounded on them with his fists.

" _OPEN UP! OPEN THESE DOORS!"_

The Doors cruelly remained where they were to spite him. The walls had never seemed more unmovable, the Creators never more cold and distant.

The sun sank below the walls and the Glade plunged into an inescapably long shadow.

Ellie barely escaped the Griever that pursued her, by turning a corner, a long ways into the Maze. No one in the Glade knew. There were simply too many of WICKED's rock walls in the way.

Gladers were looking towards the Doors with curiosity, and then shock, and then anguish as they heard what had gone down. Alby somehow managed to separate the blond boy from it all, taking him towards the corner of the Glade to talk him down.

Newt was a wreck, unable even to try to hide his distress. Alby had to grab his shoulders and forcefully keep him in one place.

"Newt? Hey, look at me, man. Look at me."

"No, no, I can't—I have to go out there. I have to—"

"Newt! It's too late. The Doors are closed."

"What am I supposed to do, Alby? I can't just sit here and sleep. I have to find her."

"What're you gonna do, man? Break through the doors? Climb the walls? That worked out real well for you last time, I recall." Alby shook him. This jab jarred Newt into looking Alby in the eye. "Give it up, man, you can't do nothin' right now."

"I have to, I have—"

"Listen. To. Me."

"Alby, she could _die!_ She's dead if we don't help her!" Newt threw his hands up and pushed Alby away. He felt totally helpless, haunted by the sight of Ellie disappearing down into the Maze, a Griever on her tail. She had done it to save them.

 _Stay alive for me._

"No one has ever survived a night in the Maze, and she's out there _alone!"_ Newt started past Alby to get to the Doors.

"NEWT!" Alby bellowed, placing a hand on Newt's chest and shoving him back. When Newt tried to get around him, he shoved him again, and this time Newt fell to the ground. Alby knelt next to him as the blond boy brought his knees up to his chest and covered his eyes with a hand as his body shook with sobs. "Newt. Pull yourself the shuck together. Listen to me, for one shuckin' second, slinthead. You know you can't even get to her from in here."

"I know!" Newt howled.

"But man, if there's one person in this place who can survive the Maze at night, it's that girl."

Newt was quiet, afraid to hope for the best and afraid to think the worst. He took his hand away from his eyes and wiped tears away—a futile gesture, really, since more coursed down his cheeks as fast as he could wipe them away. Alby put a hand on the back of his neck and made Newt look at him.

"She might make it. You an' me, we're gonna go lookin' for her as soon as the shuck Walls open, alright? We're gonna find her."

"She might be dead."

"Yeah, she might be, but if she ain't, we're gonna find her. That girl's unlike anyone else I known in this Glade, so she might make it, too. Way I see it, she's got a fifty-fifty chance of being okay. So you an' me, first thing in the mornin', we're gonna go find out."

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can't just go to sleep and act like nothing happened!"

"Then stay up! How should I shucking know what you're supposed to do?!" Alby yelled. "If you can't sleep, stay awake! If staying awake is too painful, sleep! But keep it together—you ain't the only one who's gonna mourn her if she turns out dead."

As if proving Alby's point, they heard a shriek from across the Glade. _Ben_. Newt looked over to see Ben running towards the Doors, Stephen close behind him. Fred had come out of the Bloodhouse, looking about with panic in his eyes. The news was spreading like wildfire. The Builders, gathered around the Homestead, looked around with confusion until someone told them what had happened. Newt could hear Gally's broken-hearted scream from all the way across the Glade.

" _No!_ "

Minho had locked himself in the Map Room and was roaring wordlessly to blot out the pain inside his chest, raging and throwing things with violent hysteria. Primal fury had taken control of his body—he could barely think clearly enough not to rip the maps apart. Every fiber of his being wanted to burn them.

 _Not Ellie. Not Ellie._

 _Stay alive for me, stay alive for me, stay alive. Please._

Newt repeated the words like a prayer in his mind.

Ben reached the Doors and fell to his knees in front of them, curling into a ball and sobbing. His breaths came so raggedly that his chest began to ache and beg for air. Over him, it was Stephen's turn to shriek at the Doors. As recoil from a gunshot, the force of his scream made his body bend as he forced all the air in his lungs into an all-out, desperate effort to reach Ellie's ears, wherever she was.

" _ELLIE!_ "

Alby left Newt, sprinting away to find Nick, who materialized next to him and stopped his run with one hand. In hushed whispers Alby told him what happened, and Newt saw Nick's head snap up to stare at the Doors like they had betrayed him and everyone he loved—which they had. A muscle in his neck tensed as he did his best to keep it together, but his furious eyes and stressed face told the whole story. He turned away from Alby, massaging his temples, digging his fingers in as if they could rip into his brain and remove the pain.

Fred skidded to his knees by Newt's side.

"What happened? Newt, talk to me—what happened to Ellie?"

All of Alby's words had abandoned Newt, leaving him to see everyone else's grief and experience the whole thing over and over again as each new Glader heard the story. He didn't want to. He wanted to block it out. "She's—she's gone—A Griever took her. She had to—she had to lead it away or it would get into the Glade, but the Doors closed. I couldn't get to her, Fred, I tried."

"It's not your fault," Fred said instantly, but, as the shock hit him, he fell to the side and held his hands up like they were covered in blood. He stared at them as they trembled with eyes that were wide and unseeing. Like he couldn't believe Ellie could have been taken—she _couldn't_ have been. Not Ellie.

Newt's hand found Fred's painting—the one he'd made for Ellie—in his pocket. The one Newt had been so excited to give her. He had seen a smile on her face as she ran towards him, as he'd waved, before the Griever had appeared behind her.

He couldn't look at it.

He wanted to crush it.

Ellie had been his whole world. He should have told her so; he'd had the perfect opportunity, and he'd wasted it.

She was dead—she'd died trying to save him. All of them. He couldn't believe it—he _couldn't_. He would break, he would shatter into pieces.

No one survives a night in the Maze.

—

It occurred to Ellie that she was alive.

It wasn't so much a blessing as it was a curse, really. The more she thought, the more she felt, and the more painful it was.

Her fingers still twitched in front of her face, and although she couldn't see them, she could feel them. Her back still hurt, a new intense stab of pain shooting through her with every muscle that moved, even if only an inch. She could feel blood fleeing the wounds, trickling down her skin and sometimes reentering another strip of open flesh. Her nose picked up a noxious scent of Griever oil mixed with her own blood. She wanted to gag, but feared the motion would make the gashes in her back rip apart even more. Tears ran sideways down her face, coursing over the bridge of her nose and dripping down another cheek to fall upon her hair, which lay under her head as a scratchy, unkempt blanket. Her ponytail must have come undone at some point; the band had probably torn apart easier than her body. Strands of hair close to her nose moved along with her shuddering breath.

Her throat was dry, her head spinning—the stillness of the world, ironically, rushed around her. She was dehydrated and her muscles were all spent—life and energy seemed to have abandoned her body.

It was too dark to see anything. There was a dim green light a little ahead of her which barely illuminated anything at all—but she could hear Grievers moving around nearby, their flesh squishing together, their metal arms scraping into the ground and each other. Tiny yellow lights imbedded in them moved about like fireflies in the dark. Were they looking for her?

 _Let them find me._

 _What else can they do to me?_ A sick sort of curiosity took hold of her, genuinely wondering how else exactly they could hurt her. What else could they take? It was a legitimate question, and, delirious, she very much wanted an answer.

The dim green light was blocked from her sight for a moment as a Griever passed in front of it. An odd feeling of comfort washed over her, as if the mechanical slug monsters were her friends, come to protect her. They were practically her friends, by now, anyway. She heard a gurgle close by.

 _Ah, here it comes_ …

She heard a hiss and then the _clunk_ ing sound of a mechanical door opening. Light streamed in and would have blinded her had it not been for the Griever a mere few meters in front of her face, whose bulk was suddenly silhouetted with white light. It gave a hissing gargle as it spun around and shrank away from the light, and then blurry figures came forward to kneel beside her. Voices that sounded a mile away spoke from just a little above her as hands worked to lift her up off the ground.

"Get her up—get her onto the gurney."

"Oh, man, the doctors are gonna have their work cut out for them."

" _Jesus,_ look at her."

"I know, I know—"

She was placed gently on a soft surface, which she could feel rolling, and then her overloaded mind simply gave up and passed out.

—

Newt was in the Maze before the Doors had even opened fully, and Alby and Minho squeezed after him, calling for him to wait.

Ben stood anxiously at the edge of the Glade, itching to follow them. His eyes were red and puffy, and had dark circles under them due to the night he had spent. He had barely slept one hour, and the hour he had dozed off, he had been tormented by dreams of Ellie disintegrating in front of his eyes as she laughed and joked, unable to see what was happening to her. Ben hadn't been able to warn her, try as he might to call out to her.

He had woken up screaming and Stephen, who hadn't slept at all, had done his best to calm him down.

No one knew where Gally was. Probably somewhere in the Deadheads, traumatized and full of regrets.

Every muscle in Ben's body urged him to follow Newt, Minho, and Alby into the Maze, but Nick had forbade it.

 _I'm sorry, Ben_ , Nick had said, his voice unsteady despite his words. _We still have rules, and as much as I want everyone out there in the Maze to look for her, we only have a certain amount of people who know how to handle themselves out there._

Nick was right, of course. Not everyone could be spared to look for her. Even Finn, who knew what he was doing in the Maze, was forbidden to spend the day looking for Ellie, his mentor, who had taught him how to run the Maze, who had led him on the path to being a Runner. Ben couldn't imagine what was going through Finn's brain as he ran through a different Door, across the Glade from where Ellie had disappeared.

 _Shuck_. Ben had _told_ her not to become a Runner. He'd _tried_ to convince her—why hadn't she listened to him? He'd practically begged! What could he have said to stop her? There must have been something.

As Ben racked his mind, Newt was calling out to Minho and Alby.

"Last time she escaped a Griever she did it by going to the Cliff. If she's anywhere, she's there. It's our best bet." The other two nodded.

Newt couldn't remember believing in any higher power, but he begged any deity that there might have been that he would find Ellie at the Cliff, still dodging Grievers. He _prayed_. He was too afraid to imagine anything at all to lie in front of him. Focus. One corridor after another, until he reached the Cliff. Despite his limp, his anxiety made him pull away from Alby and Minho, who ran at his heels until Minho dropped to one knee.

"Guys."

Alby had to reach forward and stop Newt for him to turn and see what Minho had found. A shadow crossing Minho's face, he gingerly lifted a barely recognizable bundle of fabric off the ground. A knife hung from the side—Ellie's knife. She went into the Maze every day with that strapped to her pack.

Newt staggered, vision swimming, and then set off towards the Cliff with renewed vigor, not waiting for Alby and Minho to follow. Not really caring whether they did. The Cliff wasn't far away. It was his last hope.

He rounded one last corner.

And fell to his knees.

She wasn't here.

It took everything out of him. He barely had the energy to whisper, " _No._ "

Alby and Minho appeared behind him and he felt their pain wash over him. Minho put his hands to his face and moaned into them as he paced to the wall. Alby stood stock still, willing Ellie to climb up over the edge and make a pun—or say anything. Anything would do. Anything would be better than seeing nothing in front of them, where they'd hoped for Ellie to be blocking their view of the abyss beyond the Cliff.

Newt stood and stepped forward, not really knowing why, or what he was looking for. His shoe nudged a stone, and the tiniest gust of wind almost blew a slip of paper away. He put his foot on it to halt its escape and bent down to pick it up. Unfolding it, he read words that sent a chill down his spine.

 _Everyone forgets her except for you._

"What?" Newt asked out loud, and then, more forcefully, he demanded, "What?!"

Alby came forward to look at it. He narrowed his eyes. "The shuck does that mean? Forget—Ellie?!"

Minho looked up at them. "What does what— _agh!_ " He cried out and clutched at his head, doubling over.

"Minho?" Alby asked, starting towards his friend when suddenly he was hit by whatever was attacking Minho, and he collapsed, writhing and pressing his hands to his head.

Newt stared at his friends in horror. "Alby! Minho!" He knelt by Alby, trying to prevent him from hitting his head on a rock. "What's happening? Guys!"

It was happening all over the Glade. Still at the Doors, Ben fell to his knees as a headache like a knife thrust its way into his mind. Finn staggered and tripped, trying and failing to catch himself on the Wall. Crouched beside the Slammer, Gally gasped for breath as a pain unlike he'd ever known infiltrated his skull. It happened to everyone.

 _Everyone forgets her._

Fred was in the bloodhouse with Bark, carrying a bucket of feed to the pigs, when whatever it was hit him. The bucket clattered to the ground and Bark pranced away, spooked. Fred stood, frozen, for a moment, before another wave forced him to his knees.

WICKED scientists in the surrounding base took control of the Killzone Monitors, and, one by one, erased memories of Ellie from the Glader's minds.

 _"If she disappears from their lives, imagine their grief!"_

 _"And again, I tell you, we have a plan for that."_

Thomas, in the observation room, got to his feet, staring in horror at what the beetle blades were capturing. Chuck covered his mouth as Thomas pressed the button for the intercom that connected them to the control room.

"What's happening? What are we watching?"

There was no answer, so Thomas tried again, furiously.

"Hey! What's going on? What are you doing to them?"

"They're wiping their memories of Ellie."

Thomas spun to face Teresa, who was watching the screen without displaying emotion. Chuck looked at her, unable to believe she said it like it was a good thing.

"They're _what_?!"

"Erasing their memories, Thomas. Dr. Paige told you she had a way to deal with their grief. This is it. They won't remember that they were upset. They won't remember their loss."

" _Newt_ will! Why? Why single him out? He's the one who will feel it the most!"

"They need to contrast his killzone's reaction to a great loss with that of a Munie's killzone. We need to know how his mind acts differently than a Munie's if we're going to get anywhere with the blueprint."

" _How can you be okay with this_?!" Thomas nearly screamed. Chuck, shrinking in his chair, looked terrified, both of his friends in the room with him and of whatever was happening to the minds of the Gladers. Ben had begun to shriek in pain as a beetle blade stood by, watching motionlessly.

"Because, Thomas," Teresa yelled back, standing up to face him. "With every Variable we get closer to a cure. You do still want a cure, don't you?"

Thomas gestured at the screen. "Newt won't be able to deal with it! He won't be able to talk to anyone about this! He'll drive himself _insane_!"

"He'll be fine!"

"Do I need to remind you that he jumped off the walls?!"

"No, of course not—"

"YOU'RE HEARTLESS," Thomas interrupted with a scream, and then stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard that it bounced back open.

"Thomas— _Tom_!" Teresa ran after him, shoving the door aside and following him down the hall.

Which left Chuck sitting in near-silence to witness Ellie's Removal.

—

Ellie woke face-down in a bed that just allowed her to see the floor through a space cut for her nose and mouth to breath from. She could only see a few white tiles—not that she assumed a floor would be all that interesting to look at. Her whole body ached and she found that she didn't quite want to recall why this was. Like a dog straining at a leash, however, her groggy mind struggled toward the memory until the whole, gruesome recollection pushed its way to the forefront of her mind. She couldn't close her eyes for the sight and feeling of Grievers surrounding her.

In a similar manner, she became aware that she had no idea what was in the room with her. She had no idea what might have been looming over her back that very second, ready to tear into her already ribbonlike back. She had no idea what it was breathing air down her neck.

Moving her arms to push herself up hurt like hell—her shoulder blades disturbed the gore. Ellie's teeth ground together as she moved her body to lie on her side. The pain robbed her of the ability to speak momentarily, but when she regained it she choked and gasped, sobbing with ragged breaths—maybe her lungs didn't work, either, and she was going to drown in her own blood.

Her sickened sense of humor returned and she nearly laughed at the idea. "Wouldn't that be a way to go, after everything," she muttered to herself.

Her newly positioned eyes could see that there were tubes connecting her arm to what looked a bit like an IV. She hoped one of them was morphine. If she stopped moving, she felt nearly normal.

 _Nearly normal is a bloody long way from real normal, in this twisted world_.

She could now see the pristine metal walls of the room, which were mocking her for being such a mess. A matching table held tools probably meant for surgery. A nondescript door was located near the corner of the room and a viewing window that spanned most of the wall nearest her feet had crossed wires in it.

 _Phenomenal. I'm an exhibit now_.

Even as she took in her surroundings, a woman passed the window and the door buzzed, and then opened to let the doctor in. She entered and stood, clipboard on her hip, staring at Ellie like she were looking at a piece of machinery that needed fixing up.

Ellie said the first sarcastic comment that came to mind.

"So the last box you put me in wasn't good enough, eh?"

Her words prompted a disappointed, exasperated look from the woman that Ellie was sure she had positively _no_ right to give.

"If you're going to give me attitude, I don't _have_ to fix you up. I could just unplug you from the drugs and watch the pain kill you."

"I'm starting to think death might be a relief."

"Oh, come on, now, Ellie. You _said_ you thought death was worse than _everything_ , remember?

The news that this woman knew the words she'd said wasn't surprising; they'd known the beetle blades were there to watch them. She bit her inner cheek and accidentally opened a sore spot in her mouth. _Great_.

Ellie's eyes darkened and a growl rose in her throat. "That was before I'd experienced anything."

The woman took an angry step toward her, face contorting into an ugly expression. "You have experienced _nothing_ , girl. Nothing has happened to you that is remotely as bad as you think it is. You lead a _blessed_ life."

Ellie stared at her, dumbstruck by her apparent ignorance. "You have no idea, do you?" she asked, trembling with emotion. "You have no idea what we—" She couldn't speak for a moment. "Sure you monitor us, you watch us, you've got stuff in our heads to watch what we think, but you have no idea what you put us through, what it's like _every single day_ up there. You can't even faintly imagine how much we _hate_ you."

"You are an arrogant idiot—you pretend you know the whole story?!" The woman leaned closer and hissed, "You can take what you think you know and shove it up your ass."

Ellie would have leapt from the bed and attacked the woman—injuries or no injuries—had the door not buzzed again and let in another woman, in a gray suit and lab coat. She wore a friendly smile that made Ellie's stomach churn with anger. "Hello, Ellie! How are we today?"

Ellie spat blood out onto the floor and said, "Well, _I'm_ doing bloody brilliantly. How are _you,_ darling?"

"I'm well, thank you for asking. I'm glad to see your instinctual sarcasm is still functioning, although it seems a little more mean-spirited than I remember."

"Gosh," Ellie said. "I wonder why that might be."

"I'm not sure I like her attitude, Chancellor Paige," said the initial woman.

"Come on, now, Laura," said Chancellor Paige. "You can't expect differently from her. She's been through a great many things in the last few months."

"Yeah—speaking of which, thanks for letting my friends _die_ ," Ellie nearly yelled the word as a writhing mass of chaotic emotions pushed into her chest. These were the people who had caused Henry and Edward's death, caused _Frankie's_ lingering agony for those months. These were the people responsible for _all_ of it.

She pushed away the memories that had surfaced from the Griever's sting and the Changing—the ones that indicated that she had been a part of this _WICKED_. She pushed away Fred's theory that the Gladers were part of the Killzone Experiment Department.

"It was _all_ you people. You let us _suffer_! You're all _sick_ and twisted and despicable and you can just _shuck off_ and let me bleed to death!" Ellie ripped the tubes out of her arm and tossed them away.

"Maybe you've forgotten," snapped not-Chancellor-Paige. "But you willingly _joined_ us. You signed on for this."

Ellie laughed mean-spiritedly. "Oh, yeah, _maybe_ I've forgotten. That would be a real plot twist, now wouldn't it?"

"Ellie," Paige said soothingly, approaching her and picking up the medical tubes, "Let me put these back in, okay? You're going to be in pain if you don't accept these."

"Since when have you minded that I'd be in pain?" Ellie demanded, her voice low and dangerous. Chancellor Paige crouched in front of her so that her eyes were on the same level as the girl's.

"I want to heal you."

Ellie's face changed into an expression so utterly tired that she could have been mistaken for someone much older. Her eyes stared like they anticipated betrayal and dishonesty, but had lost the will to resist it. "You want to use me," she corrected Paige. "That's all you've wanted to do for a long time. Just stop. Just let me _stop_."

"You would give up a chance to see Newt again?"

Paige knew all the right buttons to press. She watched the fire steadily light in Ellie's eyes again, the defensive snarl appear on her face once more. "Don't you dare say his name like you know what he means to me," she said. "Don't you _dare_ use him against me."

"I do know what he means to you," Paige said. "You'll come to understand and appreciate just how much we know, and what good can come of it. I know it's hard for you to believe me now, but I do know what you went through. I know how horrible it felt, being trapped in the Maze. I want you to know that I truly thank you, and all of your friends, for—"

Somehow, without her trying or testing it, Ellie's arm summoned the strength to move—and it moved very rapidly. Her fist shot out and slammed into the Chancellor's throat—just barely clipping her chin—and threw her back onto the tile floor.

"Chancellor Paige!" cried the other woman as Paige put a hand to her neck. The woman—Laura, hadn't Paige called her?—leapt toward the table and grabbed a syringe.

Ellie didn't fight as the needle was plunged into her neck.

" _That's_ about how horrible it felt," she managed to get out as her vision began to black out. "You know. Give or take a few knives in the back."

—

Newt had the absolute worst week of his life.

Ellie was dead and gone, and there was no body to bury, no memorial to mourn over. And no one even remembered her—no one could recall her songs, her puns, her face, her voice… How the bloody shuck had it happened? A mass-bloody-headache session, and then she had been wiped from their minds. Gladers kept repeating things that she had said (mostly jokes) and thinking that they were original. How could anyone do this to them?

Newt became more and more isolated—each time he heard an unwittingly recycled pun he nearly began to sob. He could barely talk to anyone, and when he did, he was bitter and broken. No one understood why, and he felt like he was going insane. He might have, if it hadn't been for Fred's guitar painting and the note he had found on the Cliff.

The friend group he had relied so heavily on was gone. Maybe they had never existed; Ellie having been instrumental in bringing them together in the first place. There was no picnic table full of his friends waiting for him at lunch, rich with puns and jokes and sass. He tried to sit with Fred and Neil, but it had been awkward, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't belong.

Everything was wrong.

He ended up spending his meals with Nick, Alby, and Zart, staring at his friends who he didn't talk to anymore. The Builders especially broke his heart, because they were still so uproariously happy. He winced as he heard them laughing loudly without him. Without Ellie.

The phrase "Rubbing salt in the wound" didn't cut it. It felt more like acid, and Newt was a hairsbreadth from dissolving. Why was he the only one suffering for what had been taken from them?

He couldn't count the amount of times Alby asked him if he was okay. Half the time he didn't remember his responses. Was it better to lie and say he was okay, or tell the truth and have the one person who seemingly hadn't changed begin to think he had gone insane? All he had for proof was a tiny painting and a note that anyone could have written. How could Ellie be gone?

He kept hearing her voice, kept seeing their hands touching, kept remembering how her face had shown feeling.

 _God_ , he loved her so much. He couldn't imagine the rest of his life in the Glade, without her.

As he sat at dinner, staring at the cheery Gladers, not listening to Alby or Nick's conversation, he summoned the scenario of a story he couldn't remember being told that he felt related to his situation.

It was something along these lines: There is a civilization in a beautiful place, with beautiful weather. Everyone is happy and satisfied. The crop always grows, and no one goes hungry. Children play and grow old, always pleased with how they've lived their lives. People laugh and love and regret nothing. There are no street fights, no murders, no robbers, no poverty, no starvation, no sadness or fear.

But, every day one man takes a meal to the single dark corner in the whole area. He opens a door and tosses the meal into a room full of feces and vomit and dead skin and blood and flies. A dirty, diseased child creeps forward once the door is closed again—then and only then, since it is accustomed to the darkness and the stale air full of rancid smells. It picks up the food and eats it off of the filthy floor, uncaring about disease or poisoning. The child has never known happiness in the way that the people in the utopia have.

The people around the child are either unknowing or grateful for its existence, for it is because of the child's misery that the rest of the civilization is so glorious. The child bears the burden of unhappiness so that no one else must feel it.

Newt remembered specifically that the story had ended on a question. Should the child's life be sacrificed in this way? Would it be better to let the child leave the room, clean itself, and feel happy, if it meant that the utopia would shatter?

He mused about this. Was he the child who was supposed to bear every negative feeling? How could that be fair? He buried his face in his hands and then pushed his fingers through his messy hair.

Ellie would have said it was getting longer. Hadn't she said that? Had they ever gotten around to cutting it?

"Hey, shank, you okay?" Alby asked, putting a hand on Newt's shoulder.

One more response—what did it matter?

—

Ellie experienced a week of in-and-out consciousness; WICKED kept pumping painkillers and knock-out drugs into her veins. While awake she saw blurry people standing over her, faces covered with hygienic masks. Her teeth always seemed clenched together so hard that they ached, and her eyelids burned and stuck together when she blinked. She was always either too hot or too cold. Her mind struggled to think clearly and she wanted to scream as everything logical swirled and mixed with everything illogical. Sleeping was worse; tormented by dreams that convinced her that her friends had Banished her and Newt had tossed her down the Cliff, laughing.

WICKED watched tears squeeze out of the corners her eyes as she slept, traveling down her cheeks and hanging on the lobe of her ear. Her fingernails were leaving imprints on her palms as she clenched her fists during her waking moments.

The miserable cycle ended, finally, mercifully, when Ellie woke up in a strange new room—metal walls, like the last one she could remember, but this time there were no windows, and the little amount of the floor she could see was concrete.

Blinking blurry sleep away from her eyes, Ellie shifted her head to the right and saw another monitor connected to her with wires and tubes. Beyond, she found a more interesting sight; a desk was built into a nook in the wall. It was strewn with notebooks and papers; sketches, writing, and photographs, some of which were taped up for easy access, or clipped together. On the wall to the left of the nook was a black screen, and below it, resting on the ground, was a guitar case. Ellie stared at it for a while and decided that this was no great shock. When she thought about it, this room seemed familiar, from the memories she'd recovered. She wondered if her guitar was in there—it _had_ gone missing a day or two before she had. Had WICKED taken it back? Why?

In addition, was Edward still alive? He had disappeared behind the closing Doors also; so did that mean he was here, too? Somewhere, maybe…

"Ellie?" a voice called from behind a door that very nearly blended into the metal walls. "I know you're awake. It's Teresa!"

She had to clear her throat before calling back, "That name means nothing to me."

"I'm a friend. Can I come in?"

"I doubt it, but sure."

The door clanked and was pushed open by a teenage girl with blue eyes and dark hair. She looked cleaner than Ellie had felt for months, and that alone was enough to send a bitter taste into Ellie's mouth. This taste was intensified by the large smile on the girls face, like she was happy to see a long lost friend, and not in the least concerned for her wellbeing.

"So I was friends with _you_ , huh?"

The skepticism in Ellie's voice made Teresa's smile falter, but still she replied, "Yep. You'll remember once they give you your memories back."

"Oh bloody shuck," the Glader spat. "More mind manipulation. Lucky me, right? Time for the rats in the maze to get the whole story again, I guess. Thanks for your generosity, allowing us lowly ones to join the fully-lucid club."

Teresa laughed and pulled the chair out from under the desk.

"Don't laugh at me, you patronizing slinthead," Ellie snarled.

"Sorry," Teresa said, her smile never leaving. "It's just been a long time since we've had an actual conversation and this is pretty much exactly how I figured it would go. I promise once you get your Memory Block undone you'll laugh too."

"And if I don't want my memories back?"

"What, you're telling me you don't _want_ the full story?" Teresa crossed her arms and sat back in the chair smugly.

"Of course I do, but you and your lot are not going to give it to me. You're going to give me your side of the story and expect me to subscribe fully to _your_ beliefs, _your_ ideas, and _your_ data. Why should I trust anything you say?"

"Frankly, Ellie, there's no one else to trust."

"Again, with the using things I've said against me. Come up with your own one-liners."

Ellie began to cautiously push herself up into a sitting position. She frowned when she was met with only a dull ache from her back—painful, but nothing close to what she had been expecting.

"You alright?" Teresa asked, mistaking the frown for one born from pain.

"Why on Earth would I be alright, Teresa? I've just been mauled nearly to death and separated from my friends—who, by the way, I care about more than I care about you—some of whom are _dead_ because of you, and to top it all off I'm trapped in a smaller box than I was trapped in before, with less scenery, less laughter, and less appeal overall. I have few to no memories and I don't know why, and everyone around me seems to be a patronizing snake of a person who firmly refuses to empathize with their victims, instead going for manipulation and brainwashing! I wouldn't even be surprised if they controlled my body to tell you that I _am_ alright. You can control people, can't you? Go on, control my body. It would just be one more bloody prison to deal with, and what's just one more of those to you?

"My friends are in the Maze _without_ me. They're going to tear themselves apart if I'm gone, and Newt will never be the same—"

"You overestimate your impact on them," Teresa said flatly. "They don't need you. You were failing at doing your job and _everyone_ around you was suffering for it. We had to get you out before you managed to reverse the hope you were supposed to bring them. Your Removal was a blessing on them."

"You're lying," Ellie growled.

"Nope. They've already made them forget you."

The room seemed to spin as Ellie stared at Teresa, hoping for some sign that she was lying. She wasn't sure whether to cry or scream or punch Teresa in the face.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," Teresa said, raising her hands as if she'd done nothing wrong. "I don't even understand why you're upset; you want what's best for your friends, don't you? This is it."

"You are sick and twisted." Ellie's voice was low and dangerous. "You say you're my friend? Friends don't say things like that to friends. Shuck, a _decent human_ wouldn't say or do anything even remotely close to that. I want you out of this room and out of my sight or I will kill you."

Teresa folded her arms again. "I don't think you're in a position to be giving orders," she reminded Ellie. "We are healing you, after all."

"Oh good, so I can be perfectly healthy as I take on all of your emotional manipulation."

Teresa snorted. "It wouldn't kill you to be grateful now and again."

A boiling inferno grew inside Ellie's body. Her skin felt like a million needles were poking her as she grew more and more furious with Teresa. Her rational mind kept her body under control long enough to calmly remove the tubes and wires from her arm and stand up in front of Teresa. The roiling emotions simmered and she caught a glimmer of the unstable power in Ellie's eyes. For just an instant, Teresa wondered if she maybe went too far—and then it boiled over.

By the time Teresa could raise a hand to stop it, Ellie's fist had already connected with her cheekbone just under her eye, sending a loud crack through her skull. The second hit made contact with her nose and sprayed her gray shirt with blood. She raised her hands to her face and kicked out at where her knees had been, but Ellie's hands were already tangled in her hair. She writhed as she was pulled from the chair by the head.

Teresa was dumped painfully and unceremoniously outside the door, with the shadow of an enraged Ellie looming over her.

"Keep my memories," Ellie snarled. "Keep them to remind yourself what you've twisted me into."

—

Newt had had it. He was going to tell someone.

More specifically, he was going to tell _Fred_. If there was anyone who might listen, it was Fred.

The only problem was that he and Fred had _only_ become closer because of Ellie. And Fred couldn't remember her.

He begged off of his duties in the gardens and went to the Bloodhouse, finding Fred feeding the pigs.

"Hey, Fred," he said, ignoring the blood rushing to his face. "Can I talk to you?"

Fred turned around, masking his confusion. "Hello, Newt. Oh—um. Yeah. What about?"

"Ellie."

"Who?"

"I—Oh bloody shuck, it's a lot. And it's going to sound crazy. Never mind—just never mind." Newt turned to leave, and Fred was an inch away from just letting him walk.

"Wait—tell me. I'm a good listener. I promise I won't call you crazy."

So Newt turned back and overflowed; he told him everything, aware of exactly how delusional he sounded. A girl in the Glade for _months_ , and _no one_ remembered her? In an attempt to either jog Fred's memory or convince him the story was true, Newt added as many specifics as he could. Her hair was brown, she'd been very close to Ben, she could sing, play guitar, and think of puns so creative that people groaned and threw things. She was infertile, she convinced Nick to host parties, she could make people smile—anything that Newt could think of. He recounted for Fred how scared the Glade had been when she had been stung, how thrilled they were when she had led a Griever off the Cliff, and how devastated everyone had been that she disappeared behind the Doors. He told Fred about the note he had found on the Cliff that said that everyone would forget her.

"That's why I've been miserable this last week," he finished. "I—I can't even express how much I—"

"She disappeared just a _week_ ago?" Fred clarified. "God—no wonder you've been so upset. You must have been really close if you're the only one who remembers her. I mean—if you're the one the Creators chose to remember her."

"You believe me?"

Fred considered. "I think I do. I mean, there's a lot of things that don't make sense recently. I started trying to remember who named Bark, and I realized I couldn't. I was in the Homestead the other day looking at that black-and-white picture of the woman, and couldn't remember it being there when we arrived. I figured it's a painting, and I'm pretty sure I could have been the one who painted it, but there isn't any paint in the Glade, and there never has been. So, where did it come from? And then there's that painting for Frankie's grave—also impossible. Plus, we had more trouble with the newest Greenie—ah, Luke, right?—than I ever remember having, and I don't know why that is… Felt like no one could say the right thing. Even the fact that you chose to come to me implies that you trust me to listen more than you trust anyone else, which is incongruous because I can't remember talking to you much at all. I guess Ellie was the one who got us to be friends?"

"Yes."

"Who else?" A sad realization crept into Fred's words. "Who else was I friends with?"

"Minho," Newt began. "Finn, Frankie, Gally, Ben, Dave, Alex, Stephen, Neil, and Chris."

"Minho and Gally? Friends?"

"Yeah."

"Ellie must have been something else."

Newt didn't respond. Wordlessly, he brought out Fred's tiny painting of a guitar and handed it to him. Fred took it and stared at it for a minute. He drew his sleeve across his face with a sniffle that he didn't understand. He didn't even know what he'd lost, and that might have been even more painful. He'd clearly lost _something_.

"Where do you think the paint went?"

"I have no idea. You were the only one in control of it. The guitar went missing too."

"Have you told anyone else about any of this?"

"Hah. Who would believe me, except for you? You're the only one who notices things this well. Even if you were to try to help me convince the others, they'd think I was starting a cult."

"Probably, but maybe a few of them…" Fred was still running his thumbs over the miniature painting in his hands.

"You can keep that, if you want," Newt said. "I mean—you made it."

"But I can't remember her. You can. Oh, unless—"

"Exactly. Keep that and see if it jogs your memory."

"Yeah, that."

Newt stood. "I'd better get back to the gardens. Thanks for believing me, shank."

"Yeah, no problem," Fred said as if he weren't paying attention. "Hey, wait. Newt?" He stood and tentatively held out the painting. "Do you think she would have liked it?"

—

Ellie was given her memories back without her permission—in fact, without being told what was happening at all. She was again drugged while asleep to ensure she stayed that way, and then brought to the operation table.

Thomas, watching her be wheeled away, sent a telepathic message to Teresa: _She's gonna be pissed with you_.

 _Oh, ye of little faith_ , Teresa replied.

—

"Newt! Newt!" Fred caught up to him in the dinner line, clutching something in his fist. "Hey—I found the paint! You were right, about everything! It was under my bedroll." Before Newt could say anything, he continued, "By the way, I've been thinking, and I think we should tell someone else—one of those people she was friends with. They deserve to know, right? Even if they think we're crazy..."

"Slow down," Newt lowered his voice. "What good would that do any of us? C'mon, Freddie! Just because you've noticed enough to believe me doesn't mean we have hard proof!"

"Maybe they'd listen to two of us. Plus, you can remember her songs, can't you? I don't know how many Gladers remember songs, so that's something. These paints plus the three paintings plus your songs is nothing to sneeze at, assuming I can reason through their significance out loud."

Newt began to see Fred's point. "Maybe..."

"We have to try, right? You were specifically allowed to remember her, which is a choice by the Creators that means she's probably not dead, just disappeared. We can't let ourselves forget someone who isn't dead and gone. Come _on_ , Salamander!" Fred caught himself and, with an expression of shock, averted his eyes from Newt's. "Salamander...that's what _she_ called you, isn't it?"

Newt wanted to hug him. If anyone had called him that only a week earlier he would have broken down right then and there, but...Fred _remembered_. Or at least had deduced that it was something that their lost pun-master would have said. Fred looked up at him, wide-eyed, and suddenly seemed more like a kid than ever. For as long as he'd known him, Fred had always had the aura of a soul much older and wiser than the body. Newt shrugged incredulously. "So we tell the others. One at a time, convince them. Who do we start with?"

Fred didn't even hesitate. "Whoever was closest to her."

"Ben."

"Then we tell Ben. Tell me about his relationship with her. Maybe we can point out inconsistencies in his mind, too—"

"Hey!" Siggy called. The line had disappeared, and they were the only ones left. "You two gonna eat, or stand there flirting?"

"We're coming."

Fred and Newt barely ate, instead opting to pour over and compile their evidence. Between the two of them, they came up with a pretty convincing argument, and they tried it out on Neil, who had grown accustomed to sitting with Fred for meals. Newt explained Ellie's presence in the Glade, and what had been done about her when they'd realized she was a hope sign. He explained how she'd been lost, and then how he'd watched his friends forget her. When Neil looked doubtful, Fred brought up Newt's depression for the last few weeks, and how it was already proven that their memories could be wiped. He showed Neil the empty paint container and the tiny painting he'd done of the guitar, and told him about the other two paintings he'd found. Newt watched Neil's expressions like a hawk.

"Tell me you haven't wondered why Frankie's grave is the only one with a painting."

"I haven't been to the graveyard in a while," Neil said.

" _I_ painted it," Fred insisted. "I don't remember it, but I _know_ I did. I found this under my bedroll."

"So Newt's the only one who remembers. Did you keep the note you said you found?"

Newt nodded but turned red. "It went missing. I guess the beetle blades took it."

"Hm."

"Come on, Neil. Why would we lie about this?"

"Maybe you're trying to start a cult. The cult of the Mysterious Lost Pun-Singer."

Newt looked at Fred. "I bloody told you that's what they'd think," he whispered.

Fred waved him off, and turned his attention back to Neil. Newt was a hairsbreadth from believing the kid had superpowers, the way his mind worked. "Neil doesn't think that." He leveled his gaze at his friend. "Do you believe us, Neil?"

"Yeah, Fred. I guess I believe you. It's better than thinking you're crazy."

Newt held in a sigh of relief, but his heart, for the first time since Ellie had disappeared, was feeling warmth. This might work! Maybe they had enough to prove it to the nay-sayers. There were only—what—thirty-five Gladers left?

 _Piece of cake. Piece of bloody cake._

—

Ellie woke up with her head spinning and the rock-solid conviction that she was stupid and traitorous, with a bounty on her head for forgetting things which were important to her. She touched her head and felt the bandage wrapped around it.

She scrambled to get out of her bed and nearly fell against the wall, having forgotten that her back was still fucked up from the Griever—

 _Wait._

 _Wait._

 _Was that a Glader term? 'Fuck?' No, no—the word she was looking for was 'shuck,' right? That's what they'd—what they'd—_

She stumbled to her desk and shuffled through the papers. Some were song lyrics that she remembered annotating with smiley faces and sarcastic comments. Many were stuck to the wall of the nook, surrounding a central picture. Clumsily, she picked it up and inspected it.

Her mother—a beautiful black woman with big hair and a bigger smile. Her father—a white man with scruffy brunette hair and twinkling eyes. Young and alive and beautiful. Arms around each other, facing the camera. Her father's hand extended toward the photographer like he didn't want his picture taken.

Ellie began to cry. Her father had left to her this picture before he'd turned; it meant more to him than he could express in his developing madness. How could she have forgotten them—her own parents?

She sank down against the wall and closed her eyes, trying to sort out her life story and match it to what she'd remembered from the Changing.

First of all, her name wasn't Ellie, it was Catherine. She'd been born to Eleanor and Lewis Carlisle. Eleanor had died when Catherine was three years old of an illness she'd struggled with her whole life. Lewis had been distraught, but within a few years managed to recover and find love in another woman; Marie, who had supported him through his trauma, and had befriended young Catherine.

Marie and Lewis Carlisle had married and enjoyed a few years of happiness before the sun flares hit. It was during these years of happiness that Catherine had met the young version of Newt, whose real name she never learned. When the sun flares hit, the blond boy and his family had gone downtown to suffer through the hard times. Marie had been severely burned as the temperature of the planet had raised so abruptly. The family dogs had died, and Catherine had cried for them.

When the disease had hit, her father was the first affected. He'd tried to help a man who'd staggered into town blabbering about Bergs and being shot with darts by devils in hazmat suits. Catherine, who was eight at the time, and wearing sunscreen under layers of cloth to protect her from sunburn, had wanted to help, but Marie had held her back.

It quickly became evident that the man was sick, and Lewis began to show symptoms as well. To be safe, he quarantined himself to the doghouse to keep Marie and Catherine safe. They talked to him from the backdoor window, which remained closed. He assured them everyday that he would get better, but Catherine kept noticing his sleeplessness and how he clawed at his skin when it itched, how he began to repeat words with feverish rhythm.

Finally, Marie brought Catherine to the back door to wave goodbye to her father.

"You'll be better off," he said "Marie is gonna get you safe and then get me some help, okay? Okay okay. Good. Go."

Marie had coaxed her into saying she loved him, and then they'd packed and fled the town. She'd kept the two alive for over a year, and kept her young charge's spirits up with jokes and songs. In a detour they'd taken to avoid a pack of Cranks, they'd stolen a too-large guitar that Marie swore Catherine would grow into. Catherine could never have said how Marie did it, but she managed to guide them to a safe center where scientists were testing children to be a part of a program to cure the Flare, as the disease was now affectionately nicknamed.

After a day, the results came back.

"We're sorry. She can't participate in WICKED. She's not immune. But don't give up. There'll be a cure within ten years."

Marie had begun to cry, and nine-year-old Catherine had barely known why.

Even the safe zone turned out to be risky. There were more outbreaks than Marie was comfortable with, but they were lucky. They were in the right places at the right times, and heard about outbreaks from friends who had lost something to each panic.

Marie taught Catherine a hundred different songs on the guitar, and they took their act to street corners to beg for spare change—despite everything going to hell, people still clung to the use of currency. She was good at choosing songs that caught people's attention:

" _Would you be upset if I told you we were dying?_

 _And every cure they gave us was a lie?_

 _Oh! They mean it when they say we're dead and doomed_

 _And every single symptom brings us closer to the tomb_

 _And who will take the credit for our swift impending fall because it's_

 _Not. My. Fault!"_

Marie entertained Catherine with stories about her past, and telling embarrassing stories from Catherine's childhood, some of which the girl remembered without being told. But she listened attentively so that she could be transported back to a time when foolish mistakes were encouraged and/or laughed off. They lived in a tiny one-room apartment and cooked food on a portable stove—at least, when they could find fuel. Marie forced her to practice reading and writing and corrected her mistakes like any good teacher. So Marie became mother, protector, partner, _and_ mentor; it was a lot to cram into a relationship with just one person, and the extra load showed in the premature graying of her hair.

That's how they made a life for themselves, until WICKED found them again. Catherine pretended to sleep while the man spoke to Marie. She was old enough to practice deception and eavesdropping, after all, as she thought with a cheeky smirk.

"But you said she—" Marie lowered her voice, but was still audible. "You said she wasn't immune, so she's not eligible!" With a glimmer of hope: "Was there a mistake? Is she safe?"

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Carlisle. There's been an addition to the program. It's called Project Pandora, an initiative to encourage hope and keep the environment lighthearted. We need a boy and a girl, and from what we remember seeing of your daughter, she'd be a perfect addition."

"And she doesn't have to be a Munie for it?"

"No. We know this is a lot to ask. We know you rely on her quite heavily, and she relies on you. But, please understand, once WICKED understands what can help its Trials, there's no stopping them from getting what they want. Please make this easy. We're willing to give you four months worth of supplies to compensate for her if you make the right decision."

"You'll take her even if I say no, won't you?"

"It's for the good of all, ma'am."

A moment of silence Catherine used to snuggle further under her blanket.

Marie spoke again with a trembling voice. "Will she be safe?"

"Yes."

Another moment of silence, and then, almost too quiet to hear, "When do you need to take her?"

Marie had come to wake Catherine a few minutes later, unaware that she'd heard everything. She used the darkness of their apartment to hide her tears.

"Hey, love, you remember that program we had you tested for a year ago? Well, it turns out, you can go after all! You'll be moving out in just a bit, so will you help me pack for you?"

"Are you coming, too?"

"I'm afraid not. I've got to stay here."

"You're sending me away?" Catherine asked as Marie turned to gather up her daughter's meager belongings. "Right now?"

"To a safer place, love." She came across the guitar and wiped her tears away with her sleeve. "Hey, why don't you take the guitar?" She busied herself bundling Catherine's two outfits together while her tears began to increase their flow. She finally turned and pressed the bundle and the guitar into Catherine's hands.

"Five minutes," said the man at the door.

Marie took Catherine's face in her hands. "Be brave for me, okay, Cathy? Yeah? Remember me and all that stuff I told you about your childhood, and all those songs I taught you. I love you, and I'm so proud of you. Your dad would be, too."

"I love you too, Mum."

Marie let out a sob and hugged her, scattering and ruining the neat bundle of clothes as the mother wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Go save the world, yeah? For me."

Ellie remembered wishing she hadn't let go.

Catherine was flown to WICKED's headquarters on a Berg—she found it incredibly boring, so was preoccupied with the things she could have said to Marie before they'd parted. When she got there, she was desperately tired, but forced to sit down with a stern, blondish woman who she never met again. It was a cold room, and the desk between the child and the woman felt like a football field. It was explained to her in no uncertain terms that she would be addressed as Ellie from that point on, and that refusal to go by that name would result in unpleasant experiences. Here came the things that she remembered during the Changing.

"Your education will continue with this program…" _Continue?_ Catherine thought. _It barely started_. "And you'll be housed among other children your age. We like to think of this facility as a research center and not a prison." She hadn't seen much of the place yet, and hadn't at all thought of it as a prison until the woman had mentioned it. "You especially are going to help a lot of people. Your part in our experiments will be explained to you soon. Your guardians—" _Guardian,_ Catherine thought solemnly, _Guardian, singular_. "have signed their approval of this, and all we need is your signature."

She barely read it. Her father had told her she would be better off without him, and Marie had said she would be safe. Two people who had sent her away. The only two people in her life, really, so she really didn't have anyone left. Thus, it wasn't much of a decision, and she had no doubt that even if she didn't sign it, the resulting treatment would be the same.

"Welcome to WICKED, Ellie."

So, she was _Ellie_ now. It reminded her of her mother's name. She was shown to her room—an individual room, even though they'd said she would be among other children.

It took a week of examinations and mildly painful operations before Ellie could meet the other children. She was escorted to a common living area full of boys distributed unevenly across the space. As they saw her walk in, many of them broke from their own individual groups to investigate.

A familiar face was welcome—Ellie recognized the blonde boy with a surge of joy. _A familiar face!_ He got to her first, flanked by an Asian boy and a black boy. She did the only thing that she could think of.

"Hi. I'm Ellie." The name felt strange on her tongue, but she'd spent a while practicing saying it. She stuck out her hand and he shook it

"I'm Newt. Nice to meet you." She couldn't tell if he recognized her.

She took daily trips to the boys' dorm for months, and found out multiple things:

1\. For some reason, everyone else had been tortured and forced to forget their own birth names.

2\. There was a second dorm for girls, and Newt, Minho, and Alby knew the way there.

3\. There were two mysterious kids that she hadn't met: Thomas and Teresa. They were special, for some reason.

4\. Every month, she was brought to a lounge with comfortable white couches, and interviewed with Chancellor Anderson, a few Psychs, and a boy named Max. She realized pretty quickly that they were using her to spy on the boys, and began to withhold information from them, like how Minho was planning an escape, and how Gally had some connection or other on the outside. Or how the quietest kid, Fred, had everything figured out already. Instead she talked about how much she missed Marie and wished she could talk to her again.

Unfortunately, the Psychs realized equally quickly that she was more loyal to those who didn't talk down to her all the time. But they didn't push.

It was during these sessions with the Chancellor that she learned about the Mazes and the Trials, and Project Pandora. Each time she entered the room, the viewing monitor showed a blueprint that was a little more complete.

She asked her teachers about Thomas and Teresa, but their answers were consistently, frustratingly vague.

She and Max began to be grouped together for schooling and training, and she ended up missing Minho's escape attempt, though from what she heard, it went poorly. _Very_ poorly. Minho was never the same. Angrier. More sarcastic. He had a newfound hatred for Gally.

She began to sing songs for them with her guitar. It was easy to find new ones on the glorified iPad they'd given her. Or— _old_ ones, really. Just the ones she hadn't heard before. Not many new songs were being composed these days.

Finally, she met Thomas and Teresa. Just once, briefly, when they were together. From that day on, she only saw Teresa, who was apparently WICKED's golden child. She found her a bit uptight, and did her best to explain alternate points of view to the other girl, who was so set in WICKED's brainwashing that she couldn't criticize even the worst things they did.

So, her time began to be split between her usual time with the boys, her time with Max (who was really quite enjoyable), her couch sessions with the Psychs and the Chancellor.

This time-split ended when the Groups were sent up into the Maze.

Ellie knew it was coming, and spent the night not in her own room but curled up with her friends. They reminisced about Christmases they could have had, and invented their own dream-scenario about a Christmas in the WICKED compound. It was really too perfect, and extremely improbable. But it was fun, at least, to think up.

She cried the next day when she woke up and they were gone. She began to interact with both Thomas and Teresa, after that. She sat in the observing room with them and found herself beginning to like Thomas more than she liked Teresa. At least he felt torn about the whole situation. Teresa was increasingly, aggravatingly, one-sided and one-dimensional.

Ellie was not present when the first Glader died, but Teresa told her it had been a disaster. A new kid had shown up just as he had begun to suffer, and was probably thoroughly put off with the whole Glade idea now. Ellie asked his name, and Teresa said it was Ben. Swallowing a lecture on how Teresa should be more concerned about the boy who died, Ellie said she wished she could have been there to help.

Chancellor Anderson had caught the Flare and died. He'd sent out an email placing Dr. Paige in charge. Ellie skimmed it.

And then, Newt had jumped, Ellie's heart had broken, and no one had expected it.

"Send me up!"

Images still rushed through Ellie's head. She was experiencing the whole of her life again, and it included the loss of Henry, Edward, Frankie, her father, and Marie, as well as every embarrassing moment of her life—every time she'd screwed up and been jumped by Minho or Alby or Teresa, all willing to correct her to prove how talented they all were. Every hungry night she'd spent in the one-room apartment, every terrifying Crank she'd seen from afar, every tear, every laugh, every song…

It was too much. The mother-of-all-headaches was getting worse, and she tried out her newly-remembered curse words.

"Fuck. Shit. Fuck, shit, god damn it all to hell. Piss—ass—fuck! Twats and bitches, bastards, all of you! Christ on a bike."

She tried to take a steadying breath and tell herself that nothing had changed. She was still Ellie. Or—Catherine. Whatever! Her name didn't matter; she was still _her_. But her own words proved her wrong. _Remind yourself of what you've twisted me into_.

She missed her friends. She missed not knowing. She didn't want her memories anymore; she just wanted the Glade. She wanted to run to Newt and tell him everything, recount everything to her friends around the table. They must miss her, too, right?

 _Oh god, they're devastated._ Ellie wasn't vain, but she knew what she was supposed to mean to them. To Ben and Newt and Gally, who relied on her. Well. They _would_ be devastated, if they remembered her. Maybe it was better for them to have forgotten. But the idea of Newt having forgotten her face...that stung the most vulnerable part of her heart.

"I want them back, I want them back," she pleaded. WICKED was watching, wasn't it? "Fuck! Please, I want to go back."

God, she was pathetic. Sniveling in this corner about who she was and how she'd gotten to where she was. Hadn't people died to get her this far? She was still alive, wasn't she? Come on, she'd been wanting her memories back since realizing they'd been taken…right?

Maybe she hadn't been. Maybe she'd grown more used to life in the Glade than she'd cared to admit. It was terrifying and unfair, but her friends were there, and she was safe from all…this. They had a system. She'd been running the Maze looking for a way out and just _knowing_ that there wouldn't be one.

Had she been a hope sign that the Gladers would get out, or hope that life in the Glade wasn't so bad?

A piece of paper that had been teetering on the edge of her desk fell and landed on her knees. She picked it up to examine it and found the lyrics to the song she'd been teaching Newt. But, try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to sing it without him. She couldn't even conjure the tune, though she was certain she remembered it. She replaced the paper on her desk and heard a knock on her door.

"Hey, it's me," came Teresa's voice. "You ready to talk now?"

The choice of whether to let Teresa in was still to be decided, but her voice roused Ellie from her corner of despair and forced her to shake off the shock from her memories. She paced across the room as Teresa called again.

"Ellie, please let me in. I don't hold anything against you."

Ellie barked a harsh laugh of disbelief. "Oh, thank _God_ ," she said, throwing her hands up. "You don't hold anything against me. What an _absolute bloody_ relief." She pulled the door open and saw her old friend—once an unfamiliar face.

"So. Let's bloody _talk_."


	13. Nobody Wants to Hear You Sing Tragedy

**A/N: I know I've messed up the timeline in this as according to the books—Gally was in the Glade before Ben, and all that—and I'm sorry about that. Oh well. RIP me I guess. Anyway, my thanks goes out to all of you who are invested in this despite its flaws! And again I'm sorry for my slow writing process. This is only part of what I wanted to get done, but I got so discouraged that I stopped writing for a while, so I might as well give you guys this.**

—

So.

Ellie or Catherine?

On the one hand, everyone here knew her as Ellie. It had been her name for a few years now. No one except the Chancellor knew her name. Probably. Maybe a few other goons and Psychs and dumbasses. So it would be for…continuity's sake? So no one would have to re-memorize her new—old—name?

On the other hand, they had taken her other name from her. Forced her to go by another name, like they were her pimps. Like she was their whore, their prostitute.

That was a bad metaphor. WICKED had nothing to do with prostitutes.

They'd allowed her to remember her old name, even before the Maze. The others hadn't been so lucky—she remembered Newt telling her how he'd forgotten his own name, but always remembered his sister's. Lizzy. She'd never had the pleasure. Her _friends_ had been tortured bad enough to forget their _names,_ and she just got to remember hers? That was unfair.

So, Catherine or Ellie?

Old versus new.

Her father had known her to be Catherine. Her mother had named her Catherine. Marie had called her Cathy. Oh, God. They were all dead. They weren't—but might as well have been. But did that mean her name should die with them, or should it stand tall as a memorial, as the remnants of what her parents had wanted for her?

But…Newt. Newt didn't have the privilege of knowing his birth name, or using it. Neither did Ben, or Stephen, or Minho, or Gally. Their names—all they had when they arrived in the Glade, confused, terrified—were all lies. Newt knew her as Ellie.

But so did WICKED, which, by the way, was an incredibly suspicious acronym for an institution supposedly working for the greater good.

She wanted to throw something.

On yet another hand, it was just a name. They were just names. Not identity. She would always be…whoever she was. Catherine wasn't dead. There was no need to mourn her just because she'd been renamed.

It still left a bitter taste in her mouth to use the name she hadn't even wanted.

 _Why'd they need codenames, anyway?_

Decision time.

Catherine seemed so far away, now. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she should die.

Or maybe she should just grow the hell up. No one _wanted_ to be lied to, manipulated, or tortured by military slug monsters in an overgrown rat maze. But she sure as hell didn't have the worst of it. Her father was a Crank. Marie—if she wasn't dead—was in serious danger of contracting the Flare. And here she was complaining about the methods of the _only_ organization trying to right the wrong that was loose in the world. It was time for sacrifices to be made, and 'Catherine' was just a jumble of letters that someone back in the day had decided might be used to label a person. 'Catherine' meant nothing, so if that was all she had to give, it was fine by Ellie.

It took Ellie longer than it probably should have to work through her little existential crisis, cringing every time someone had called her by the name Ellie, but not willing to cause a scene and force people to call her Catherine.

Luckily she'd been left alone for an hour as she waited for one of the Psychs to come evaluate her. It was comfortable when compared to…well. Compared to _everywhere else_. It had a couch and a swivel chair. Ellie had stretched out on the couch and waited for far longer than she should have.

"I hope you haven't been waiting for _me_ to evaluate _myself,_ " she said aloud, glancing around at the cameras, curious to see if some exasperated intercom voice would come on and beg her to begin the interview, they've been waiting for her word to start filming. Silence. Quite the throwback to the Maze, where the Creators were associated with silent, detached viewing. "Well, I hope not. I didn't write any questions for myself."

A few minutes later, the door opened, and a man in a dark suit and a clipboard entered.

"I hope you haven't been waiting long," he said pleasantly.

"Do you even _own_ a watch?"

He sat down in the swivel chair, looking remorseful. "Ah. That long, eh? I got caught up, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry," Ellie replied. "I'm sure you lot got valuable intel on my levels of patience."

The man shrugged. "Probably. Are you ready to begin?"

"Ready as ever, I s'pose."

"How about some word association? I tell you a word, and—"

"I know how word association goes."

"Ah, good. Here we go, then. Walls."

"Bridges."

"Mhm. Doors."

"Locked."

"Maze."

"Corn."

"What?"

"Why."

"No, I mean, why does your mind go from the word 'maze' to the word 'corn'?"

"Maize is another word for corn, doc."

"Oh—oh. You were making a joke. I see. Okay, the next one is 'Family.'"

"Friends."

"Okay, then. Jokes."

"Laughter."

"Song."

"Remnant."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, like when I sang in the Maze, it was the last thing I had of who I used to be, you know? Like a remnant of my old self."

"Got..it…" The Psych scribbled on his paper. "Tree."

"Dead."

"Well, that's morbid, isn't it?"

"You're writing on a dead tree right now, doc. Lots of Maze maps drawn on dead trees up in the Glade. Plus the graveyard is in the Deadheads—note the name—mostly comprised of trees. And the grave markers are wood. Taken from trees."

"You're quite caught up with the Maze and the Glade, aren't you? They're still quite fresh on your mind, after almost two weeks and the recovery of your old memories. Do you wanna talk about that?"

Ellie gave him a raised eyebrow and not much else.

He reshuffled his papers and asked more questions.

And so it went.

—

Ellie didn't know what to do with herself since her schedule had been so drastically changed. She still woke up when her watch said to, which was too early to do anything in the compound. Not that there was much to do anyway. She was told that new kids were being assimilated into the facility, and she could help with that, if she wanted. She could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner if she went to the cafeteria. She could read the various papers in her room like she was reconnecting with long-lost friends. She could read them again. She could visit the boys' old sleeping quarters, which were mostly empty, except the one or two poor kids that were meant to go up next. And that was too hard for her. She could go to a therapy session every week and try to clean the horrors out of her head.

She had no idea what was happening in the Glade. She kept trying to go to the viewing rooms, but had no luck getting in.

One day, she was brought to the same lounge where she used to be interviewed, and met by Chancellor Paige.

"Hello, Ellie!"

"Hi."

Paige ushered her in. "I've brought you here because I know you're still adjusting, and I thought it might be better if you had someone with you with a similar experience."

The boy on the couch stood up. "Ellie!"

Ellie's eyes widened. "Max!"

They came forward and met each other again, hugging.

"Good to see you again, fuckboy," Ellie said, teasing him tentatively, like she didn't know whether he would remember.

"Back at you, bitch," Max replied, and then they stepped back to examine themselves, still touching the other's arms to make sure they didn't disappear. Ellie hadn't seen him since they'd had their memories wiped. Maybe since before that. Max laughed. "You look awful!"

"Thanks," Ellie said. "You're not so bad, yourself."

"It's all that clean livin'," Max shot back.

"I got attacked by the Grievers. More than once, actually. You?"

"More than once!? You ran the Maze?"

"Every day I ran the Maze like a bloody _champ,_ Max! What, did you just sit on your ass surrounded by the lovely ladies in the safety of the Glade?"

Max laughed again. "Oh, you know it! I sat back and enjoyed the view. Smooth sailing, all the way."

"What was your job?"

"I did the shit jobs no one wanted."

"Didn't ruin your nails, did you?" Ellie teased. "I would've taken you to be a chef."

"You kidding? I nearly burnt the kitchen down!"

"You _didn't_!"

"Don't believe me?"

"I just can't believe you'd risk your food source!"

"Yeah, yeah, and you hauled ass into a dangerous unsolvable maze every day, that's real smart."

Ellie snickered. "I would've been a Builder if I hadn't been so fuckin' curious."

"All that talk about you being the sign of hope go to your head, did it?"

"Well it didn't go to yours, so it had to go somewhere, clearly!"

"Not my fault I got the stupid job!"

Ellie waved a finger. "Dream bigger, Max!

"Wait—you mean the world is bigger than the toilets in the Glade?"

"No wonder they got you out so easy—I wouldn't wanna be doing that either."

Chancellor Paige cleared her throat to shut them up. They turned to look at her like she was intruding, which she kind of was, but they were in her room and not their own.

"I'm glad you two still get along," she said, like this was her perfect plan and everything was going perfectly. "I've got some gifts for you, if you'd like to have a seat and wait."

"We can wait standing up," Ellie said instantly, but Max obeyed her and sat, nudging Ellie to follow suit. His eyes spoke: _Play along, dumbass. Please_. She sat, and they lowered their voices as the Chancellor went into her office to retrieve their gifts.

"How's Newt?" Max asked. He knew about Newt's incident, and how Ellie felt about him.

"Better," Ellie said. "I think. Not dead, if that counts for anything… What about Marie?"

"She's still got your mum's name, alright," Max answered, to show off that he remembered what Ellie had told him about her step-mom. "She's fine. Relatively. She ran the Maze, too."

"Is that how they got you out there to Remove you?"

"Indeed it is." The air between them grew melancholy, but not unfriendly or unfamiliar. They were finally there for each other again. "Save that for later, okay? Keep it cheery for our audience."

"Deal."

Max held out his fist, grinning. "Infertility Squad, back together again."

Ellie tapped her knuckles to his. "Under thrilling circumstances, as always."

Ava Paige came back holding Ellie's guitar in one hand and a cluster of papers in the other. Both of them sat forward.

"My guitar!"

"My script!" Max eagerly reached out and took the papers, shuffling through them. Ellie took her guitar carefully, running her fingers along the side.

Ellie looked at Max. "You used the papers to write a bloody book?"

"I had some good stories to tell! And it's a _play_ , not a book."

"You wrote it by hand!"

"And you remembered how to play guitar and sing songs!"

Ellie strummed her guitar dramatically. "Yeah, make your play a musical and you're set, aren't you?" It would have worked better if her strings hadn't needed tuning. She fixed them while Max laughed and mocked the sound her strumming had made.

Chancellor Paige sat on a couch near them and fixed them with a stare.

"Are you two settling in alright?"

Max and Ellie had hit it off the minute they met. They were on the same wavelength on multiple levels, so Ellie could sense the changes in his tone as he responded. He didn't intend to tell Dr. Paige the whole truth.

"Well, you know. As well as can be expected." He smiled and shrugged. He was an actor. Ellie wondered how he'd spent his stay in the Glade.

"How about you, Ellie?"

"Same," Ellie said. "Sorry for punching you in the throat and for what I said to you."

Max turned to her and widened his eyes pointedly, like he was saying, _You totally did not._

Ellie nodded and wiggled her eyebrows. _I totally did._

 _"_ It's totally fine, my dear," Ava Paige waved Ellie away. "It's completely understandable. I would've felt the same way. But if you don't mind me saying it, I'm glad you're back to the old you."

Ellie managed a huff in the stead of a laugh.

Max spoke up. "Hey, um. So we're out of the Glade now. You didn't tell us that was going to happen."

"No, we didn't. We didn't want to put a damper on you two before you even went up."

"And the Gladers forgot about us?" Ellie asked.

"All except the ones who were closest to you."

This was apparently news to Max, who subtly shut down upon hearing that his friends didn't even remember him.

"Why?" Ellie asked, trying to keep her cool. "Why them? Wouldn't Newt and Marie be the ones who would be most likely to be affected the worst?"

Dr. Paige nodded. "I'm afraid so." She shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't want this to get so serious so fast, so I'm glad the two of you are sitting down. We're trying to contrast their killzones' reactions to a great loss—the loss of you—with the killzone of a Munie, reacting to another great loss that will come at the start of Phase Two."

"Wait. Wait. Newt's not immune? Marie isn't immune?"

"I'm afraid not. We brought Newt in because his sister was immune, and due to certain… complications, we felt it inhumane to leave him on his own. Marie was the daughter of a prominent French doctor who said he would only join WICKED if she was protected. I know it seems cruel anyway, but we're trying to work towards—"

"A cure for the Flare. We know," Max said, stirred from his autopilot with a new sense of urgency. "Who else? Who else isn't immune?"

"I don't think you want to do that to yourselves," Dr. Paige said quietly.

"Did you know," Ellie asked, "that Max and I would get so close to them?"

"No. Your roles within Project Pandora have been… _evolving,_ ever since we began, and even since you two had already signed on. In its base form you would have come in only while the groups were not yet in the Maze and released when they were input. Then we decided it would be better for you to go up with them, and then we brought you two in and watched how you changed your groups' dynamics. Some of your circumstances lined up perfectly with pre-planned experiments, so we adapted."

"So if we hadn't gotten that close with anyone we wouldn't have been removed from the Glade in the first place," Max theorized.

"You were never meant to participate in Phase two, but if it hadn't been decided that you would be Removed there's no telling what would have become of Project Pandora."

Ellie put her head in her hands. Max stood up.

"Hey, are there any more bombshells you need to drop on us?"

"Yes, actually. And it's the worst of them all. I shudder even to ask it of you, but I hope you'll agree when you give it thought—"

"Okay, can we have some time to process all this before you tell us?" Max proposed boldly.

Dr. Paige sighed. "I suppose. I'd hoped to put it out there today, but if you need time, that's okay. Please don't delay for too long. This decision requires a good amount of consideration."

"We won't," Max said, not betraying how freaked out he was. He pulled Ellie up and they left.

—

Max led Ellie to his room and they burst into conversation.

"You think that display was good enough for them?"

"You were just acting like you were upset?!"

"I was toning _down_ how upset I was," Max said, throwing his hands up. "I was ready to strangle her right then and there. Do you think they know anyway? Do you think they're still monitoring us?"

"Yes. They definitely are. I just don't know how specific their data is."

"Shit. How can we even talk privately?"

"I don't think we can. Not with surety that they aren't listening."

"What are we going to do about this, Ellie?" Max asked, voice lowered like it would conceal his feelings .

She slumped onto his bed, her voice cracking desperately. "Fuck. I don't know, Max. I haven't got a clue."

Max slumped into his chair. "Marie…Newt…" He held his head in his hands. "They're not immune. They're like us, Ellie. They've got the same fate. _FUCK!_ " He screamed the word and launched himself to his feet as if into battle, throwing his chair against the wall.

There were only a few moments in her life when Ellie had fully understood the human condition. Live, Decay, End. You watch your heroes wither away, skin crinkling and memory failing, and try not to notice the same happening to you. The seriousness of it all hit Ellie in one great sucker punch, lending her despair like she'd never felt. Her time on this god-damned earth was fleeting and insignificant.

She didn't matter. Her friends had forgotten her. The only ones who mattered to her and still knew her name would die as Cranks.

"No," she argued with herself, aloud. "They won't."

"What do you mean?!" Max asked.

"We can't let them die Cranks." Ellie said it firmly, though her voice croaking with emotion. "This cure…I don't know if it exists, or what. But if there's even a chance that our friends can be saved…?" She left it off, and Max finished for her.

"We have to take it."

"Yes."

"But WICKED, Ellie! Look at what they've done to us! They've…I don't know what they've done to you, but in my Maze, people _died_. My friends _died_."

"Mine did, too, Max."

Max slowly pulled his chair upright again and sank down into it. Ellie hung her head. She had been about to argue, _We can't let our friends have died for nothing,_ which would have been fair had they _known_ that they were dying for something. Or if they had any guarantee that WICKED's cure would work. The argument _Sacrifice some to save the many_ felt like giving up on her friends' chances of survival, and no matter what Ellie felt, she couldn't say anything of the sort out loud.

Max sighed deeply. "I hate it…but I think I agree with you. Logically. All the world is worth sacrificing all of us, a thousand times over. I say 'us' because of that last bombshell Dr. Paige was going to drop on us. I think she's going to ask us to die for this cause."

Ellie's stomach seized up instinctively. After everything, after losing so much—family, friends, memories—and being so twisted, bent, and broken out of shape, she _still_ didn't want to die.

"She's not going to _ask_."

"Ellie?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to die."

"Me neither, Max."

Max grimaced to keep the tears in, looking away. "I wish we could have _one_ good day. For once."

"Every time we think we've had a good laugh it's ruined."

"Exactly. By _something_."

"Like _death,_ for instance. Just as an example off the top of my head."

Max gestured to her, like _YES! You get me_. "Yeah, and near-death."

"Fights."

"Mazes."

"More information than we can handle."

Max drew checkmarks in the air after each. "Yep. All of the above."

"One good day…" Ellie mused. "You think we'll ever have one again?"

"At the moment? Cant say I got that much hope."

Ellie shrugged miserably. "Well, if nothing else, at least you and I are still on the same page."

—

Ellie had found a song that was perfect for her whole life. She and Max spent a few hours in the cafeteria, pencils lodged in each of their hands, pouring graphite onto paper. The lounge they met Dr. Paige in wasn't exactly for friendly hang-outs, and WICKED got uncomfortable when they were in each others' rooms for too long, so they went to the communal eating area and stayed there, glaring at any WICKED doctor who came in.

Ellie was trying to prove to Max that every line could relate to their lives since the sun flares by marking each line with her pencil. She had hand-written the lyrics to the song just from listening to it, so she wasn't sure how much she got wrong. But she got the majority of it, for sure.

 _"I scraped my knees while I was praying_

 _And found a demon in my safest haven"_

She pressed her pencil to the page and wrote a note about her father turning to a Crank in her safest haven—her childhood house.

 _"Seems like it's getting harder to believe in anything_

 _Than just to get lost in all my selfish thoughts"_

She and Max were both failing to believe in the values they'd been clinging to. Hope? Who had hope, anymore? They wanted a cure to save themselves and the people they loved. Marie and Newt.

There followed a few lines where she was unsure. She'd circled " _In all my spite"_ as a nod to her own spitefulness.

" _And the worst part is, before it gets any better_

 _We're headed for a Cliff._

 _And in the free fall I will realize_

 _I'm better off when I hit the bottom."_

Ellie and Max had both dived off the Cliff in the clutches of a Griever, so this verse wasn't hard to prove. She only wrote, "Though I hate to admit it, life in the compound is better than in the Maze." She hoped Max felt the same way. She was ashamed of herself to find that there was any silver lining in this hellish situation.

The next verse practically read her mind.

" _The Tragedy, it seems unending._

 _I'm watching everyone I looked up to breaking, bending"_

Teresa had shown her into a viewing room to watch the Glade while Thomas had been busy. It had only been an offer; one Ellie hadn't needed to accept, but she had, like a fool. She'd seen Newt struggling to convince Alby and Ben that she was real. Even to her, he sounded crazy.

Newt looked horrible. His eyes were hallowed, only lighting up after he'd begun talking about _her_. Fred shadowed him as if he might fall over at any moment, though he still moved his slim body carefully. She choked back a sob when she saw him limping. _My beautiful broken boy…_ his blond hair was getting longer and more unkempt than ever. Ellie couldn't believe that Newt—level-headed, beautiful, admirable, honorable, and respectful Newt—was not immune. And he was suffering. If anything could push Ellie to revolt against WICKED, it was the sight of Newt's face—Newt's eyes—when Ben stormed off in disbelief.

"I'm here," she'd whispered. "Guys…I'm here." They couldn't hear her.

Ben took a walk, and she saw his face as he tried to reassure himself: Surely he couldn't have forgotten a best friend.

"Maybe we should stop trying to convince people," Fred murmured to Newt. Alby hadn't really believed him either. "It's not going as well as I thought. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

"None of this is your fault, Fred." Newt's eyes flicked around to each of the few Gladers he had managed to convince. "I just didn't word it right. And I think Ben is actually thinking it over. If nothing else, they have an image of her now."

 _Breaking, bending._

Ellie's pencil had been hovering over those words, but now she moved on.

" _We're taking shortcuts and false solutions_

 _just to come out the hero."_

That one was WICKED's corrupted quest to find the cure. Easy.

" _Well I can see behind the curtain…_

 _The wheels are cranking, turning._

 _It's all wrong the way we're working_

 _Towards a goal that's non-existent._

 _It's non-existent, but we just keep believing."_

She had circled the word Cranking. As for seeing behind the curtain, well…She and Max were now behind the walls, seeing the other side of things.

The goal that's non-existent. Worked for either the Flare cure or for the Runners running the Maze, looking for a way out.

The chorus was repeated for a while and she had nothing new to write for it. Not yet. So she slid it over to Max, who slid his revised play over to her, and they read the others' edits.

"Huh," Max said. "See you've pointed out more here than I know I would've."

"Well it's not every line, yet."

"Think you can get there? If not you owe me a week's worth of desserts—"

"I know the bet, Fuckboy."

"Just making sure, Bitch."

—

Newt and Ellie dreamed about each other.

Newt had a torturous dream of exactly what he wanted. In the dream, they were entangled in a golden field glowing in the sunlight. His leg didn't hurt, and her face was covered in makeup rather than scars or bruises or sweat. His hair was short again, and they were both clean. She was looking up at him adoringly, and his subconscious allowed him to bathe in the image of how she should have been. She put a hand on his cheek, and this one physicality made Newt think, _Please let this not be a dream_ …

 _Would that we were so lucky,_ Dream-Ellie said sorrowfully.

 _I never told her I loved her,_ Newt's dream-self said dramatically. Some part of him knew he had.

With the increasing realization that he was dreaming, Newt was beginning to wake up. Ellie's figure was beginning to slip away from him. There was no more golden field. Her voice echoed to him.

 _Even so, Salamander… She knew…_

Ellie dreamed about being in the Glade again. She was about to go into the Maze, but she and Newt couldn't separate.

 _I have to look for a way out_ , she thought, and tried to communicate this to Newt. He held her back, not responding. His eyes said, _Don't go_.

 _I have to go_ , Ellie thought. She thought she was being strong.

Suddenly she was watching from third person, hearing herself say, _I have to go_.

Newt pleaded with her not to. The Doors had been open for embarrassingly long. Nick appeared and began to yell at her for not pulling her weight. Newt grasped her hand.

 _Don't go!_

 _Pull your weight, Ellie!_

Ellie watched herself back away from Newt, her hand sliding through his as his body suddenly became ghostlike and intangible. With nothing to keep her in the Glade, she began to glide towards the open Door.

 _I'll be back, I promise_.

As she was passing through the Door, the two sides slammed shut faster than the blink of an eye, and Ellie found herself looking through what seemed to be one-way glass at Newt and Nick, both stunned. What was a window to her was an opaque wall to them, and she hammered on it, trying to let them know she was alive. Ghostly Newt seemed for an instant to see her, but vines started to cover the glass, making it impossible for either of them to see. Newt ran forward and pounded against the wall to reach Ellie, to no avail. Ellie watched herself reach for him, only to be swallowed by the constricting vines.

She woke in a cold sweat, gasping for air.

It had been like reliving it.

She shot out of bed and fled down dark hall after dark hall until she got to the viewing room. The lights weren't on, but the screens showed the what the beetle blades were watching. One of their cameras' feeds was already following Newt, who was awake in the dead of night, though sitting against a Wall was not where Ellie would have imagined he'd be. His head was leaned back on the rock and his hand was massaging his shoulder as if it had been his and not Ellie's that had been run through by a Griever. His exposed Adam's apple quivered briefly and Ellie realized he was humming.

She rushed to the control board and gave herself sound and nearly began to cry when she realized what song he was humming.

It was the one she'd been teaching him.

She knew what it was called now: "Strangers" by Scratch21, and it was ancient by now, but it had been new to her when she'd arrived at WICKED.

Ellie eavesdropped as he began to sing to himself.

" _Save me, I'm drowning so deep in the darkness_

 _I'm waiting for your touch to stop this_

 _There's smoke blinding us with goodbyes, and I…_

 _keep Hope,_

 _'cause this feeling's different and I know_

 _I've staggered so long that it can't go…_

 _Alleviate me, I'll be fine in time."_

Ellie was down for the count, in a mess of tears. She hated that she'd taught him this song, she hated that it fit for their situation, she hated that he had to sing this to her and she had to listen. He didn't even know she _was_ listening.

" _Please remember that I miss you_

 _Young and reckless, what did we do?_

 _Broken promise, gone forever_

 _Maybe one day we'll get better…_

 _Right by your side—that's where I'll be_

 _in a heartbeat if you ask me_

 _Let's stay strangers like we're meant to,_

 _Oh I wonder if you miss me too…"_

Newt was crying now, too. He could barely finish the last few lines. He looked up at the beetle blade through a veil of tears and Ellie felt like he could see her in all her sins. How could she be here, in so comfortable a place furnished with couches and swivel chairs and showers and screens, while he was stuck there without being able to hear her voice.

He wasn't even sure she was alive! He knew that now—there was no way to know if she was really alive, as he'd been believing. Fred could have been wrong. His theories were only theories at best. Either way, he'd lost the most important person in his life.

Ellie saw the pain in his eyes and read him like a book, understanding the realization he was coming to.

"No," she pleaded, her voice cracking with anguish. "Please, Newt, I'm here. I care about you. I miss you. I love you."

The words were too easy while he couldn't hear her. She should have told him she loved him more.

What was Ellie supposed to do? She had to sing her verse. Even if he couldn't hear her, it meant _something_.

" _Find me,_

 _I'm waiting right here where you left me!_

 _Still shredded and bruised, but I'm breathing_

 _Be brave for me; ignore their eyes._

 _Just try!"_

She thought about Ben's eyes and how he'd walked away from Newt in fury when Newt had tried to tell him the truth. She nearly stopped to make way for the tears, but Newt was still onscreen, bobbing his head but not singing her part. She continued.

" _We're dancers,_

 _And I've picked petals looking for answers_

 _And I've received these edges from chances_

 _Indelible, but I'll be fine in time!_

 _Please remember that I miss you,_

 _Not caring is so hard to do_

 _Everything we loved together—_

 _It's not the same without you there._

 _Feels like you were just beside me…_

 _How did time go by so quickly?_

 _Now we're strangers, but I miss you_

 _Oh I wonder if you miss me too…"_

There was another verse—one where they were both meant to sing together. Newt was strong enough to continue, but Ellie just couldn't. She couldn't do it! She broke down and listened to Newt's voice, wracked as it was with sadness, manage to reach the notes of his part, having only his imagination as a substitute for Ellie's counterpart.

" _Please remember, don't forget me_

 _I'll be leaving this heart empty."_

Ellie turned the sound off so that she couldn't hear it, but it didn't help. The words were still in her head.

" _Burn our bridges—Are you still there?_

 _All these endless circles mean nothing…"_

The door creaked open, but Ellie's eyes were squeezed shut and burning from the tears. She curled up on the chair and wept. The sound came back on, and made it worse. Only it wasn't worse because it _couldn't_ be.

There was nowhere further down to go. This was it. This was rock bottom.

 _Fuck_.

 _"And yet, I don't know why I can't just let you go_

 _Can we go back, can we start again?_

 _Because, I need you."_

Newt leaned his head forward and clutched it between his arms as if he wanted to rip it off. His body shook.

"I need you," Ellie whispered pitifully.

 _"Oh I wonder if you need me, too…"_

She didn't know when Max had gotten there or how she'd sunk to the floor, but he was embracing her and stroking her hair, and the coldness of the tile was seeping through her pajama bottoms. The taste of tears in her throat was suffocating, and Max kept whispering, "Shhhh, shhh…"

He'd mercifully turned off the sound, but it was too late, anyway.

"It's okay, Ellie…"

She tried to say, _It's not,_ but couldn't force it past the lump in her throat. Her ragged sobs robbed her lungs of oxygen so that she was almost ready to pass out.

"Hey, hey, hey," Max muttered into her hair. "It's going to be okay. It's late at night. Tomorrow's going to come."

"Shut…up…" Ellie managed, clutching at him.

"Hey, what is this, anyway, High School Musical? Who sings their feelings to each other?" Max tried to make a joke. "I guess you and I together—You're the 'musical' and I'm the acting." Max failed to laugh at his own words. "You're both cheesy motherfuckers."

"I know," Ellie wept, burying her face in his shirt. "I know. I know."

They stayed there like that for as long as Ellie needed to get back on her feet. He helped her back to her room and sat by her, hoping she'd get some sleep. She didn't.

—

When Ellie asked Teresa to sneak her a notebook from the supply closet—"Any old notebook will do"—her blood boiled to be looking to her for help. Teresa, unsuspecting of Ellie's hatred of her, agreed. Maybe Ellie had picked up some tips from Max on how to conceal intense rage from its object, or maybe she'd been good at it already.

So Ellie had a makeshift diary now, and intended to use it to write informative letters for Newt, should they ever meet again and need to catch up.

 _My Dear Salamander,_

 _I hope you already know how much I love you, but I will say it again. I love you more than anything. I don't know how much you know by the time you're reading this, but just in case, I'll put everything. They've given me my memories back, so it might be a lot to take in. It was a lot for me, too._

 _It has been a month and a half since they took me away from you, and I have seen enough from the beetle blades to know you were trying to convince everyone that I exist. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch you all the time. I'm sorry. I hope you understand. I couldn't do it._

 _My birth name is Catherine, but I intend to keep going by Ellie. You and I lived on the same street as kids, but you knew that already, from memories that came back to me. What you might not know is that you have a sister. Her name is Lizzy, but she doesn't know that. They made all of you forget your names, but you could always remember hers. She's in the Girl's Maze and you told me they're calling her Sonya._

 _The reason we were all in the Maze is because WICKED is trying to find a cure for a virus called the Flare that was spread around after the sun flares burnt everything up. They're studying our brain patterns and trying to map the brains of those who are immune to the virus in hopes of curing it for humankind._

 _We're not immune, Newt._

 _You and I, we're not immune. I'm sorry._

 _It burns me up, knowing what they did to us, but I believe in the cure. I have to. If for no other reason than to save you, I'm willing to sacrifice everything for this. And I think that's what's going to be asked of me. Our friends have been dying and in pain for months, and I can't stand to think it's for nothing. I know you probably won't like it. I can't even believe I'm writing it down, because it makes a complicated emotion seem so simple. I hate WICKED. But I have to believe in something, Newt—I have to believe in hope, and if all the Trials and Variables and betrayals and tears and hurting can get us to a cure, then maybe you and I would have a chance to grow old._

 _I'm barely holding myself together, Salamander. How the mighty have fallen, right? So much for me being a sign of hope._

 _I think that's all for the time being. I know you're not sure if I'm alive, but know that right now, and forever, the thought of you is what keeps me sane._

 _Love,_

 _Ellie_

Ellie had written a lie. Of course she wanted the chance to grow old with Newt, but she and Max both knew they were about to be asked to die for the cure. It was growing pointless to avoid the conversation any longer, and they knew it. But Chancellor Paige was seeming to be busy all the time nowadays. So first, she and Max went to ask Teresa what she knew. She was the greatest suck-up, so maybe she could tell them inside intel.

"Hey, Teresa, has Chancellor Paige mentioned anything about what we're meant to do for the next step?" Max asked for Ellie, aware that she could hardly bear to speak to Teresa. Plus, he had always been more tactful. So.

Teresa turned from what she was doing and made a thoughtful face. "No…? I don't think so. Why?"

"She mentioned something about it last time we were talking," Ellie said. "But didn't get the chance to explain."

"And she's been busy," Max said. "So we've been getting curious."

Teresa shrugged. "Sorry, I'm not in charge of Project Pandora. I only know what they tell me."

"Come on!" Ellie exclaimed. "Where's your sense of curiosity?"

The other girl laughed lightheartedly. "I'm curious about plenty of things! I'm just so focused on a few specifics that I can't focus on everything! I do have a job, you know."

Ellie stopped herself from hazarding an offensive guess at what Teresa's job was. Beside her, Max shrugged and said, "Well, sorry for bothering you, then. We'll let you get back to it."

—

The only time they could catch the Chancellor was at night when she was just leaving her office, a little past midnight.

"Chancellor?" Ellie called. Ava Paige jumped.

"Oh, goodness, you two. You startled me."

Max came forward. "We didn't mean to. We'd just been wondering what it was you meant to ask of us last time we talked."

Paige shook her head and tried to move away from them. "It's not really something that should be discussed in a hallway at this hour."

"Please," Ellie said, stopping her. "We have to know. It's been eating us up."

"Really, can't we discuss this tomorrow?" the Chancellor was massaging the bridge of her nose.

"It _is_ tomorrow."

"Fine! Fine." Chancellor Paige reopened the door to her office and ushered them in. "Take a seat. You'll want to be seated for this."

Max obeyed, but Ellie remained standing, wanting to prove her strength after so many weeks of being the weak one.

Paige sighed. "Very well. You're aware that Phase Two will involve the two Groups going into the area known as the Scorch. It's ridden with the Flare and hot and miserable—you're aware. They'll have to make it through the Trials in the Scorch before we can get to the blueprint. Everything has been scouted out and thoroughly planned so that we'll get the information we need. Only a few ingredients need to be put into place—two of which are Thomas and Teresa. They need to go up into the Glade eventually. They're immune; they can't be exempt from the testing in case one of them is the real key to writing the blueprint."

"Woah, wait—" Ellie stopped her. "Do they know this?"

"Teresa does. We want Thomas to make his own decision to go up. He's close to that point already. Teresa has been keeping tabs on him for us."

Max and Ellie looked at each other. Teresa was more of a snake than either had known.

"They are only two of the ingredients that need to be added for Phase Two to be functional. You two are the rest."

They caught their breath. Here came the answer they'd been seeking.

"But…We're not immune," Max prompted.

"No," Dr. Paige said sadly. "You're not. This is why it's been such a terrible thing to ask. Forgive me. It's hard even to say."

"I guarantee it'll be harder to hear," Ellie assured her.

"I need you two to go into the Scorch and catch the Flare."

Even squeezing your eyes shut and mentally preparing for a gunshot doesn't stop the shock when the bullet hits your chest.

Ellie, to her credit, remained standing, though her heart fluttered wildly and she felt faint. Max's eyes abruptly began squeezing tears out. They didn't look at each other or Dr. Paige, trying to gather themselves together. Finally, Ellie spoke.

"When?"

"You have a few more months," Chancellor Paige said with a shaky voice. She cleared her throat. "A month before Phase Two begins, you'll each go through a Flat Trans and be loaded on a Berg to head to a town in the middle of the Scorch. You might not catch the Flare immediately, but it's inevitable. You'll wait there until the Groups arrive and then we'll see how they react to seeing you there—you are buried in your group's subconscious, and information from that part of the brain is just as important to us."

"We—won't be together?"

"No. The Groups will take different paths when they reach the Scorch, so you must be placed so that you're in their way."

Max had heard enough, so he stood up and walked out. Ellie watched him go.

"I swear, if I thought there was another way to test every part of the brain—"

"How much of this did you have planned?" Ellie asked before she even knew she was speaking.

"What?"

"How much did you have planned when we were brought in?" Ellie restated the question. "How much?! I was _ten years old!_ How could you ask my mother to leave me to you people if you knew I was going to turn into a Crank?!"

"We didn't know then!" Dr. Paige yelled. "I've told you Project Pandora has been evolving all this time! The Psychs and doctors have always been finding new hypotheses to test! I would never ask a ten year old to die for us!"

"You're not asking us to die!" Ellie raged. "You're asking us to go insane! We're _teenagers_!"

"This is why I didn't want to talk about this right now," Chancellor Paige rubbed her forehead.

"Oh, don't worry," Ellie spat. "We'll participate in your bloody _Scorch Trials_. We'll sacrifice our minds to your bloody cause. You'll find your bloody cure. Don't bother worrying about us. I'm sure you'll sleep easy enough. Good night." Sweeping out of the room before the tears could make an appearance, Ellie fled to her room to weep once again.

—

Newt no longer derived pleasure from the arrival of new Greenbeans. It only reminded him of how Ellie-less the Glade was. The Gladers had reverted to laughing un-empathetically at the newbie. One more new face that had never lain eyes on Ellie.

At least he'd begun to fit in again. He'd been hanging out with Alby more and more after Alby had acknowledged that _maybe_ there had been a girl in the Glade. He still kept eyes on Ellie's former friend group, remembering how close they'd once been. At least Stephen and Ben were still together.

Gally's mood had never recovered from the hit of Frankie's death. Ellie's disappearance had probably hit his subconscious pretty hard without him knowing it. That was Fred's theory, at least.

Gally felt something wrong. He was burdened with dreams about a faceless girl who called him 'kid' and comforted him about Frankie's death. Ben had been talking about Newt's crazy rambling about a girl in the Glade, seeking confirmation that Newt was wrong. That was probably what his subconscious was trying to tell him. But still. Every time someone told a joke, it seemed familiar. Hadn't one of Newt's points been that the mysterious disappearing girl had told puns?

Gally knew that being stung by a Griever could bring back memories. He wanted to remember this girl. He really did.

Midday one day, he went and stood in the Maze, trying to work up the balls to find and face a Griever.

He didn't go very far into the Maze. He didn't have to.

The Griever found _him_.

It was over in an agonizing flash—the fleshy, oily machine pounced on him and tore into him and then it was gone, and he was dragging himself back to the Glade, screaming for help. Clint ran to him and stabbed him with the serum, and then Nick and Alby and Jeff and Newt joined his side and brought him to the Homestead as he began to scream.

Newt hadn't kept a close enough eye on him.

If Ellie had been here she would have kept him from going in the Maze, easy.

What was one more thing to beat himself up about, anyway?

—

Ellie and Max were each others' only consolation, and this ought not to come as a surprise to anyone. Here is a list of Some of the Things That Were Wrong With Their Lives, in no particular order:

1\. They were both in love with a special someone who they were forced apart from.

2\. Each of their special someones couldn't be sure they were alive.

3\. They were in a place that was worlds more comfortable and hospitable than the place where their special someones were, which lent them all sorts of guilt.

4\. They still had physical scars on their bodies from having been taken from their special someones.

5\. The above is not to mention the mental, emotional scars. These two had been traumatized.

6\. Their closest friends didn't remember them at all—despite Gally's attempt to regain his memories, the ones he had gotten back were not of Ellie.

7\. Their families were either dead or as good as.

8\. Some of their friends were dead.

9\. They had just been asked to literally lose their minds for the cause of an organization that _let_ their friends die in the first place. They had a mere few months before they would be shunted from [the place where they'd resided for _years_ of their lives] into [the most dangerous place on Earth].

10\. There was a virus called the Flare that was making everyone go insane and taking over the world. That was a big bummer.

11\. Some of their friends were immune to this virus, but Ellie and Max were not, nor were their respective special someones.

12\. Their minds were being monitored by a bunch of scientists.

They were doing their best to cope. They clung to each other like lifeboats, trying to enjoy their last few months above the waters of insanity.

 _My Dear Salamander,_

 _I hope you never have to learn what it feels like to be commanded in advance to sacrifice yourself for a cause. I feel as if I'm already going insane—and not because of any disease. If there's any hope left in me, it's too slim to see. Sometime in the future—only a few months away—I'll have to enter the Scorch and lose my mind for WICKED. There's no way to describe the dread._

 _Do you ever think about time? I do. Time and memory. Memories are ruined by the passage of time. The moment I came into the Glade is immortalized in my memory, but I will never get that back. It's over. Nothing will ever be the same as it was then. Right now is going to be a memory in five minutes when I finish this letter. Only a few minutes ago the idea to write this occurred to me, and I thought nothing of it. Time moves too fast, and I hate the thought of never getting back to what once was. What Once Was is gone from my life forever. Conclusion: The passage of time is depressing._

 _I love you and I miss you,_

 _Ellie._

To keep their minds off the dread of their oncoming doom, Max and Ellie started watching old movies. They entertained themselves by giving stupid nicknames to the characters whose names they could never remember.

Presently, Ellie's legs were draped over Max's lap and they were contemplating the complex plot line revolving around Angery Boy, Eagle-Eyes McGee, Eye-Candy, and The Slippery Fucker. There were others, of course. It wasn't just a four-person movie.

"Hey, Max?" Ellie asked thoughtfully.

"Yeah?" Max paused the movie.

"How did you know—when you went up into the Glade, how'd they figure out you were the hope sign?"

"Well, I'll be honest, it took us a while. I mean, for you, you figured out you were infertile pretty fast I guess. For us, it took a little longer."

"Do tell."

"So we figured pretty quick I was either a spy or I was there for procreation. I was pretty sure I wasn't a spy, but you never know, you know? So we knew _they_ were fertile, because of the whole Girls-have-periods thing. So we tested it."

"You—you _tested_ it?!"

"Yeah."

"You had _sex_ with one of the girls?!"

"Yeah. And then we waited for a while to see if she got pregnant."

" _Holy shit_." Ellie started laughing, and Max followed suit. "You _fuck_ boy!"

"She didn't get pregnant but at that point people were already attached to me so they didn't throw me out for being a spy."

" _I can't fucking believe you_."

"Believe it, Bitch!" Max cried. "I didn't get my nickname for nothing!"

"I KNOW, because I gave you the nickname! Holy shit. Holy shit, Max. Please tell me it was with Marie."

Max hid his face in his hands and shook his head. Ellie hollered and burst out into a fresh bout of loud laughter. Max chuckled along in shame.

" _Who_?! Who was it with?!"

Max clutched his head. "Oh you're not going to like it."

" _Tell_ me."

"No."

"Tell me!"

"It was with Sonya!" Max wailed. There was a pause as his words sunk in. Ellie's jaw dropped and she covered her mouth, performing a strange combination of a gasp and a laugh. Unsure of whether she should be giggling or reprimanding her friend, she covered her mouth with another hand, her twinkling eyes wrinkling at the edges.

"You didn't," she hissed as she uncovered her mouth. She batted Max's shoulder. "You _didn't_! Is she even of legal sex-ing age in America?!"

"She's like fourteen or fifteen."

"What the hell!" Ellie's giddy voice was raised with the thrill of scandal, making it impossible to sound too mad. "Oh my _God,_ Max! You're such a fuckboy!"

" _She's_ the one who had the idea! She volunteered!"

"I can't believe this!" Ellie was doubling over with a smile that hurt and bursts of infectious laughter that robbed her lungs of air.

"It's really not that funny, Ellie!"

"You know who Sonya is, right?!"

"Yeah, she's my friend from the Glade—"

" _Sonya is Newt's sister, Max_!"

Mortified, Max slapped a hand over his mouth and gave his own scandalized bark of a laugh.

"I have literally never been more embarrassed in my entire life!"

Ellie almost couldn't breathe because of her giggling. For once, she cried tears of laughter. She put a hand on her chest, gasped for air, and wheezed to the ceiling, "She's a hoe! Oh my God. Oh my God" Max cackled at her facial expression.

Their laughter took a while to die down, and when it did, Ellie laughed, "I hate every part of this. I hate _every_ part of this. I can't believe this happened."

"I'm the worst," Max moaned, fighting off chuckles. "I can't believe I've done this."

"It's okay," Ellie said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay—I'm serious, my cheeks are hurting from laughing so it doesn't look like it, but seriously, it's okay—you had to find out somehow, right? Hoo, boy."

"We never speak of this to anyone."

"Yeah I think that's probably the best idea."

Max's facial expression was replenished by a new realization: "Holy crap, Ellie, do you think there were beetle blades watching?!"

Ellie clutched her temples. "They'd have _so much_ blackmail!"


	14. To Keep the White Light at Arm's Length

**A/N: Thank you all for reading this. I know it wasn't as consistent as I wanted it to be (both in terms of upload times and plot-holes), but it means a lot that anyone read this at all, and put up with the song lyrics! Sorry; I'm a theater kid at heart :) Thanks to my friend who actually owns this account, I could share this with the Internet, and just...wow. Anyway. Here it is.**

 **Edit 7/30/18: There MAY be an epilogue, which will also be tragic.**

 **Trigger Warnings - Character Death, Drug Use, Underage Alcohol Consumption, Suicidal Tendencies, Murder, Insanity, Gore, Self Mutilation**

* * *

Against her will, Ellie was spending time with Teresa.

Well, she had been minding her own business, spacing out, when Teresa had said, "Can I sit with you?"

And Ellie had said, "Sure," like some kind of idiot.

Max had nearly kamikaze'd himself into the situation, but had seen Ellie's face from over Teresa's shoulder and nodded, backing away.

Mercifully, Teresa seemed at first content with just sitting in silence that Ellie was sure _Teresa_ thought was comfortable. If Max had gotten to her first, it might have been. Max was cool with just sitting and spacing out next to her. Teresa…she wasn't sure what Teresa wanted. How could Teresa _lie_ if she was sitting in silence? And she reminded herself before the thought occurred, that Teresa didn't do anything if she didn't think there was something to be gained from it.

"So," Teresa said softly. "Did you ever find out what Chancellor Paige wanted you to do?"

Ellie's chin was resting on her forearms, which were in turn folded and resting on the table, which was of course resting on the floor. Presently Ellie rolled her head so that her cheek was on her arm instead of her chin and she was facing Teresa. "What, in the dark about it, are you?"

"Yes, actually."

"I don't believe that." Ellie lifted her head up.

"Ellie, why won't you ever belie—" was cut off with Ellie's " _Teresa._ Teresa."

Teresa stopped protesting as Ellie made sincere eye contact with her with an aura that seemed unusual for someone her age. They lingered on each other for a quiet time, and it gave Ellie her answer. Teresa watched her face change as her secrets were deciphered. The infertile girl looked at her arms and unfolded them.

"I'm not angry with you."

This was not the reaction she had expected. "Why not?"

"Are you kidding me, Teresa? I don't have any left." Ellie gave her a rueful chuckle. "And anyhow, I guess…I got used to being lied to. I guess I'd have been angry if it had been a surprise."

Such bitter words from such a calm, kind face. Try as she might, Teresa could find no way to respond defensively to that. She swallowed, and asked quietly, "What are you going to do?"

Ellie shrugged.

"So what, you're just going to roll over and show your belly to WICKED? They want you to catch the Flare! You'll throw away your life like—"

"And you wouldn't?" She looked at her, freezing her again with those eyes. She spoke calmly and slowly. "Come on, Teresa. Don't talk like you care. You're sounding like Thomas."

She stood up while Ellie remained seated. "Ellie, they're going to send you to the Flare, and you—you're not even going to try to get out of it?"

She shook her head.

"I don't believe you."

"You should." Ellie's responses came quickly to her lips with a conviction that unsettled her. _Finally_ , Teresa thought, _someone besides me is willing to be a martyr_. Ellie continued, "Seriously, Teresa. Can't we have _one_ honest conversation with each other?"

"I'm _being_ honest!"

"You're not; you're interrogating me. Finding out if I have a way to ruin your plans, right?" Ellie shrugged once again. "Sorry to disappoint."

Teresa's disposition changed then, although it could have been Ellie's ever-hopeful imagination. It seemed like a wall melted away from Teresa's exterior. She sat down once again.

"How'd we get here, huh?" she asked. "I try to weasel information out of you enough times for you to distrust me entirely."

"I'd be kidding us both if I didn't blame you."

"I only did it all to find a cure."

"I know why you did it. I just know there was another way to get a cure." Ellie closed her eyes. "Why couldn't we have done it the better way, Teresa? We could have gone a route that didn't end in disaster."

"It hasn't ended yet."

"When it does, will you be happy?" When Teresa didn't respond, Ellie looked at her and prompted, "Will you be upset at what became of you? Will you be dead, like the rest of us?"

"We're not going to let you die."

"And if your cure is too late for me? You never know what a Crank will do. And I'll be alone out there, more alone than I am in here. It's okay, Teresa, it's okay." Teresa had reached over and put a hand on Ellie's arm, and she'd allowed it. "I'm hardly a main character in the story of the world, and if I am I'm hardly one that matters."

"The world will remember you as a hero when the Flare is gone. When all of this is over we'll tell people about you."

Ellie scoffed, the derision in it not directed at Teresa, but at the millisecond of hope that there would be a monument to her. "Of course they won't." They made eye contact once again. "Most of my friends don't even know me. What would there be to tell?"

Teresa searched. "You're Ellie…from England. Ellie who lost her family to the Flare and her name to WICKED and who still found strength to give hope to those who needed it. Ellie who knew she loved a boy and would do anything to save him. Ellie who loved music, who loved jokes, who loved her friends. Ellie who hated having to lose her friends."

Ellie snickered. "I'm glad you put that one in there because I was about to tell you I'm not all love inside." They chuckled together and she pulled her arm away from Teresa.

"Teresa…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you believe I'm telling the truth about not having an escape plan?"

"Yes."

"I've asked you favors before, and I assume you ran them all by your WICKED handlers first. I guess I don't care if you ask them this, too."

"What is it?"

"I'd like to take a gun with me to the Scorch. I can't protect myself from the Flare but I'd like to protect myself from Cranks."

Teresa slowly sat back. "You're not planning to use it on yourself, are you?"

Ellie's smile became rueful once again. _Back to interrogation mode, I suppose_. "No. I told you I wanted to be honest, and I do. I'm not trying to deceive you."

WICKED's lapdog faltered briefly. Ellie and Max would be sent to the Scorch in just one month, when Chuck was to become the Glade's new Greenie.

"Okay," she said. "If you swear you won't use it on yourself, I'll try and get a gun for you."

"I swear it."

"I'll give it to you on the day you leave." Teresa shook her head, not believing she had agreed to such a thing.

"Thank you, Teresa. _Hey_. I mean it." Teresa looked at her. "Thank you."

—

Ellie no longer allowed herself to think about the future. Any future. It made things better; there was no hope for a future with Newt, no distress at the future where she died alone, no fear of losing her mind to a disease with no cure. It meant she could appreciate her remaining time with Max. She supposed nothing was _that_ different from normal life. You're born, you live, there are a series of cruel twists, you do your best, and then you die. You die, whether sooner or later.

When they spoke to WICKED personnel, she and Max were both unable to bring themselves to feign friendliness. Unable to express bitterness, as well.

When Ellie sang songs they sounded good enough, but they had nothing behind them; no sadness and no hope—just nothing.

—

Ellie was never to see Nick cut in half from trying to go down the Box's shoot. Ellie was never to watch Chuck enter the Glade, never to see Stephen's botched grave marker, never to witness Ben stung by a Griever and Banished (surely if she had she would have called it 'Ben-ished,' although surely she would have been too broken-hearted to say it), never to see the look on Newt's face when Thomas asked to be a Runner, never to feel his hurt when the next girl in the Glade was not Ellie. She would never feel the pain of the Grievers following up on their threat to infiltrate the Glade, or hear the relief in Gladers' voices when it was _Dave_ who was taken, and not themselves.

She never knew any of it.

Her one month left had turned into one week, then into one day, then into one sleepless night, then into one hallway, and then she was there.

She stopped in front of the Flat Trans and the guard who had ushered her there went to stand by the entrance. Teresa was there, but not Max.

"I'm sorry, Ellie," she said.

Ellie tore her eyes from the hypnotizing gray of the Flat Trans. "Why?" Her voice was empty, like so many things.

"Sorry that this has to happen."

"WICKED is good, I guess," Ellie said, too tired to put any emotion onto her face. Teresa did not squirm under her gaze, but instead stepped forward so that the guard did not see the gun she offered to Ellie. When they feigned a hug she slipped it into her bag. A bag which now carried nothing but a towel, a water bottle, a journal, a pencil, and a pistol.

She had left her beloved guitar behind.

"There should be food there," Teresa said. "Cranks have been living there for a long time, so there must be food somewhere in the town. There will be a Berg arriving pretty soon to drop more Cranks off, so just wait until it's unloading to go out in the open."

"Why?"

"They might not like that you're from WICKED if they find out. We're going to be removing the Flat Trans after you go through, too. You mustn't leave the town, alright? You must stay there if we're to accurately compare brain scans, and we _have_ to do that, Ellie. We just have to. Do you understand? You must stay in the town and stay safe if you want to see Newt again."

"What?"

"It might not be too late for you if you're careful. You might be able to see him again while you're still lucid."

"Shut up."

"Come on, Ellie, he needs you to be careful—"

"Shut UP!" Ellie yelled, pushing Teresa at a wall. "Stop trying to manipulate me, Teresa, it won't work. Stop trying to give me false hope, just…Stop. I'm already following your stupid rules and I'm already sacrificing myself like the kind of bullshit martyr you think _you're_ willing to be, but you're _not_ the martyr here, I am. That's what I hate about you, Teresa, you think you're so high and mighty and you think you're sacrificing so much for the cause. Well, you're NOT. Everyone around you is sacrificing and you are doing absolutely fucking _nothing_.

"Oh, did I never tell you I hated you, Teresa? I do. I hate you more than anything. Did I ever tell you I was always faking being your friend? I guess it doesn't matter now. But I'm still going to go through with this, God damn you. I'm still hoping you bloody assholes can find a cure. That is the _only_ reason I'm doing this. It's not for _you_ , it's not for your Crank mother or whoever it was you care about _so much_. I am doing this because of _Newt_."

Ellie was practically spitting the words at Teresa now. "It is because, if there is _one_ person on this godforsaken sun-scorched _rock_ of a planet who deserves to live, it's him."

"Hey," threatened the guard in a deep voice. Ellie stepped away and he nodded at the Flat Trans. "Time to go through."

Out of outlets for putting it off, Ellie didn't even hesitate.

—

 _Dear Salamander,_

 _I can count the days during which I have not thought of you on one hand, though it shames me to say there have been any of those days at all._

 _I have gone through with WICKED's plan to shunt me into the Scorch. This is likely the place where I will die. I've made nice with a girl named Hannah, maybe 21, who has blue hair. We're a kind of partners now, I guess. We made a home for ourselves in this little alleyway between a jail and a convenience store. We've nicked some food for ourselves as well as some of the handcuffs from the jail._

 _I've got the gun Teresa gave me, and we've got a barricade of sorts, so hopefully we'll do okay for a while. I'm told thinking too hard will accelerate the process of the Flare, so we've decided we'll get ourselves a routine and we'll stick to it, for minimum thinking._

 _There's no use in being afraid anymore. Probably there never was. Anyways I can't afford it anymore, for fear of the cognitive shit speeding things up._

 _I may not write much now._

"Whatcha writin', Redcoat?" Hannah asked from the entrance to their alley. Ellie looked up. In one hand she held a six-pack of beer and in another her fingers clenched two bottles of wine. Hannah walked over.

"Journal," Ellie said.

"Cool," Hannah replied, uninterested. "Figured we could get drunk on occasion, to slow the Flare down. If we can't find any drugs. Someone here has got to have some Bliss." She set the drinks down in an empty crate, from then on used as the drugs and alcohol crate.

Hannah was not far gone, compared to some of the people she had been on the Berg with. She'd been tested for the Flare only an hour after she'd been exposed to it for the first time, and kicked out of her city by Berg in the next hour. The second she'd found out she was infected, she'd dedicated herself to not overthinking, not caring, not feeling. She'd always figured infection was inevitable, and had not left anyone behind to worry about.

Ellie caught the Flare from her a day after they met, almost a week after they'd gotten to the town in the first place.

Ellie didn't care for the Scorch. She sweated constantly and always felt thirsty. There was always something underneath her nails, her hair was oily and her scalp itched. Finally she pulled it back in a ponytail so tight it felt it was pulling her skull apart.

Every day the two of them wandered out of their hidden home every day when they woke up, avoided Crank fights, gave no charity, took whatever path had the least resistance. Each day they came back with meager loot and Ellie would sharpen her pencil with a knife and write a sentence or two to Newt in her journal, whatever useless knowledge she'd learned that day.

At first they had wandered together for protection. One or two scrapes they'd managed to get out of together, but after one particularly vicious one, it became clear that just one person to watch your back would not always make a difference. Before they'd decided to split, though, they'd come across Ellie's first dead body since the Glade. She looked at the corpse expecting to have a flashback to Frankie or Henry but ended up feeling nothing. They stole his food and his flashlight.

Two weeks into her time in Cranksville, USA, after a particularly fruitful day of searching, she came back into her alley and found a girl there. For a second Ellie stood there in silence and watched the girl read her notes to Newt. She wasn't sure if it was Hannah. Recently she'd been thinking Cranks she had never seen before were people she knew from WICKED. She stared at the girl's hair for a little while before determining that it was not blue. Ellie had found a machete in a corpse earlier that day and now she took it out and tossed her bag to her sleeping mat, which was really nothing more than a tattered rug. It clattered loudly to the ground and startled the girl reading her notes. She spun to face Ellie, clutching the notebook in front of her like it could protect her from a machete.

For fun, Ellie thought, let's just pretend to be crazy.

She pointed her machete carelessly at the notebook and put on a Cockney accent. "That belong to you, does it?" The girl shook her head rapidly and Ellie came forward. "Does it? No? No? No?! What're you doing readin' it, then?"

"Nothing, I was just—"

Ellie cut her off by putting the machete up against the girl's chin. "Drop it. There ya go. Drop it. Drop. It. Over there, go on."

The girl dropped the book and raised her hands.

"Who are ya? And whaddaya want?"

"I'm—I'm Brenda," said the girl.

"Brenda! Brenda, Brenda, Brenda. New here, are ya, dear?"

"Y—yes."

"Rule number one, love. Take shit from the dead, not the living."

"I'm from WICKED," Brenda blurted.

"Ah," Ellie said. "Then you don't really _need_ the things you're taking, do ya? Choose your next words very carefully, Brenda, cos you'll know if you've been reading this book that I _hate_ WICKED."

"Oh, I'm just a pawn." Brenda seemed to become more confident. Ellie kept the machete to her chin. "I'm not in charge of what happened to you. And you and I both know you're not this crazy yet."

Ellie rotated her machete so that the sharpest edge was vertical against Brenda's jaw. "And just how do you know?"

"I got here yesterday," Brenda said, "And I checked your brain scans right before I got here. You've been very clever in slowing it down."

"You're a Munie, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Clever one, too, right? WICKED loves their child geniuses. 'ow old are you again?"

Brenda's jaw clenched and she said nothing.

"Well you ought to know that Munies," Ellie chuckled here. "Munies aren't immune to Tetanus. Ever seen someone die of Tetanus, Brenda? Probably through the cameras in our Glade, right? You remember. His name was Frankie, Brenda. I want you to know that if you ever, _ever_ come back to this alley, love, that's what'll be in store for you. You are not welcome here, love. You, nor anyone from WICKED. I don't want to hear that there's a new plan for what'll become of me." She laughed again, hysterically. "This is it. This is all they're getting."

"I actually came because I'm a personal fan," Brenda said. "You kick ass. I thought it would be a waste if you died and I'd never gotten to speak to you."

"Sorry to disappoint, love. You know I can't trust you." Ellie nodded towards the exit and rotated their position so that Brenda was between Ellie and the alley entrance. "Out."

"Wait, before I—" Brenda reached into her pocket. and brought out a packet. "This is never given to Cranks in the Scorch. WICKED figures that here, there's no use for it. But I thought, maybe you should have some." She reached out to offer it to Ellie.

Just then, Hannah decided to make her entrance and rounded the corner as if she'd been there all along and walked in like nothing was happening at all.

"Oh, look at that, is that Bliss?" she chirped, and plucked it from Brenda's fingers. "Thanks, babe."

There was a moment of silence where Ellie pushed Brenda further toward the exit, and Brenda looked to Hannah for a friendly word. Hannah, however, chose Ellie's side.

"You heard her," said the blue-haired Crank, coming forward to lounge on Ellie's shoulder. She made a shooing motion. "Scram."

Brenda raised her hands and turned to leave. When she was out of sight, Hannah released Ellie's shoulder and gestured at Ellie's machete, "Good find." She went over to get herself some food.

Ellie sat where she was and lay on her back to stare at the sky. "Poor shank," she said.

That night, they decided to get drunk. They sat across the alley from each other and Ellie's head was already spinning when Hannah pointed at her and slurred, "So. WICKED, huh?"

Ellie chuckled. "You heard that, huh."

"Yep. Careful where you spread that stuff. People lost faith in WICKED a long time ago. Something about," she shifted position and grunted with the effort, "taking money from the rest of us for a cure that doesn't exist."

"Mmm, I know that feeling. The losing faith I mean."

"Yeah? What'd you lose to 'em?"

Ellie laughed drunkenly. "Where do I start?" She drank from her bottle and began counting on the fingers of her free hand. "My stepmother, my name, they tortured my boyfriend, my friends Henry, Edward, and Frankie all died, they fucked up my mental health a little bit, took me away from my friends and made them all forget that they even know me, and oh, after all I did for them they sent me away to die a Crank."

"Bitches, right?" Hannah pointed at Ellie to punctuate her next words. "You deserved better."

"I know, right?!" Ellie said, sloshing her wine. "Some thanks I get."

"Wanna tell me about your boyfriend?"

Ellie leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She remembered meeting him in the Glade, his leg broken, his eyes hollow. _Guess this isn't the most impressive way to meet the Newbie._ "No. Yes. No."

"Come on. I'm certainly not going to tell anyone the juicy drama details."

"There's not much to say. I just love him."

"If you love him, there's gotta be something to say."

"Okay. He's always been amazing. He's kind and he's secretly the Mom Friend and he has the most amazing eyes. He used to love it when I sang."

"You sing? Sing me something right now."

"Fine," Ellie said. "But only— _only_ cos I'm drunk. What do you want me to sing?"

"Anything. I don't know a lot of songs."

"I know a lot of early twenty-first century songs; that's what my stepmom liked."

"Go for it."

"Okay, um. The first one that comes to mind…" Ellie thought. She couldn't remember the first verse, so she just launched into the first that she could remember.

" _Skin is snow white, as chemicals fight_

 _to keep the white light at an arm's length…_

 _Hair is all gone, but still it's too strong,_

 _And she's too young to go this way._

 _And I will fall asleep while she falls through_

 _between the lab coats in a sterile room_

 _And though I try to rest my conscience screams_

 _I hear her father whisper in my dreams…_

 _'Just because you need a savior doesn't mean you're just a sinner_

 _Just because there is a loser doesn't mean there is a winner,_

 _And sometimes the right answer is 'I don't know.''_

 _And I am screaming at the dice, 'Why'd you roll that way?_ '

 _I am…I—_ "

Ellie stopped singing. "That's all I can remember." She laughed.

"Good," Hannah said. "That was depressing as hell anyway."

"You said go for it."

"I guess it was fitting."

"It would have been better if I'd had my guitar. That's another thing WICKED cost me."

"Ah, the worst loss of them all."

Ellie harrumphed.

"Fuck it," Hannah said. "You're depressing, Redcoat. I'm too drunk for this. I'm going to sleep." Ellie flipped her off as she turned her back and lay down.

—

"Ellieeeeeeee," Edward sang.

Her eyes snapped open. She was staring at the wall in front of her.

"Wake up, sleepyhead. What are you doing on the ground like a bitch?"

"Go away, Edward."

"Ohhhh," he said. "Look who's finally losing her mind."

Ellie whirled around and saw nothing, not even Hannah. She sat up and scanned the alley. Nothing.

Then the headache hit, pounding her brain like there was no tomorrow. "Ah, Jesus Christ," she winced aloud.

It took her a little while to stumble to her feet and pick up her machete and bag. She was hungrier than she'd ever been. She cracked open a can of food and devoured it.

Searching was useless. Her eyes seemed to slide over everything she saw without successfully judging its worth. She spent far too long staring at things before picking anything up. Even easy decisions, like food and pain relievers, gave her grief. There was an incessant whispering in the back of her mind.

When finally she gave up and started to go back, the voices in her head were droned out by a scream. Not uncommon, in this town—Cranks were howling and wailing and babbling nonsense all the time, flitting around the buildings like ghosts and demons in a hectic dance to devour any last remnants of sanity. Usually Hannah and Ellie tried to avoid them. Seeing anyone pacing in a corner or hearing footsteps in a building was an indicator of a hasty retreat.

This time, though, Ellie saw the source of the scream, and it wasn't a Crank. It was Brenda. She had gone down under an attack from a woman who was very clearly past the Gone. The woman was crouched over her, clawing wildly and flailing her limbs trying to get at Brenda's throat. Saving Brenda was as easy as slicing the woman's first.

Brenda was showered in her blood as the Crank tossed herself to the side and tried to strangle herself to stop the bleeding. Ellie watched that tactic fail.

"You saved me," choked Brenda, spitting the woman's blood out of her mouth.

"Apparently. Good thing you're a Munie," Ellie noted.

"Yeah," Brenda breathed. "Why would you do that?"

"Don't feel special," Ellie said. "There are plenty of people I'd fight to the death for who don't even know my name. This was just a passing courtesy."

"Courtesy," Brenda scoffed. "I haven't seen you in days."

"Bullshit, it's barely been one day."

"It's been nearly a week. What, did you take all the Bliss one after the other?"

Did she? What of Hannah? She'd thought this headache had been a hangover. Perhaps she could remember the Bliss, and its heavenly lack of thought, of motion, of processing, its days spent just staring across the alley at blue-haired Hannah, who was just as tuned-out as Ellie was, and neither felt the need to speak. Perhaps she could remember the blurry slow-motion of the days as they passed them by.

"Why do you care?" Ellie asked. "Bliss is only prolonging the inevitable. Why space it out?"

"I care because I thought you were smarter than that."

"It's a shame, isn't it. A shame, a shame. But there's no point in saving Bliss for when I'm further gone. It doesn't make me have more sane thoughts, it makes me have no thoughts at all."

"I wish this wasn't happening to you," Brenda said.

Ellie almost replied with 'I wish that too,' but found she couldn't even bring herself to feel the wish. Before, wishes had flourished in her chest the way happiness had when she made the Gladers laugh. And now she didn't even mind its absence. She crouched next to Brenda and said, "You shouldn't care so much about a dead woman, yeah? You've got your own problems."

"Why not? Everyone does."

Ellie thought on this for a moment. "They're all wasting their time." She stood up and said it again; Brenda stared at her, response-less, so Ellie began to walk away, and nearly ran head-first into the shade of Edward, who disappeared almost as soon as she saw him and left only his voice in her ears.

" _You're repeating yourself, Ellie. That's what Cranks do_."

She jerked her head away as his voice got closer to her ear—but of course he wasn't there, and so she shook herself and walked away.

—

Ellie and Hannah always sat across from each other in their alley. Ellie sat on her mat of ratty rugs and blankets under a barred window of the jailhouse and Hannah sat sprawled between crates of stolen things. Ellie sharpened her pencil with a knife and Hannah pulled at, braided, and shook her now-faded blue hair. Hannah was lucky to have dried-out, dead hair, Ellie thought sometimes.

"You ever remember the rest of that song?" Hannah asked.

"What song?"

"The song," Hannah said frustratedly. "The song. The _song_."

"I can't remember any songs."

"Bullshit, you remembered a song. _The_ song."

"Not anymore."

"Come on, Redcoat. Put your pencil down and try to remember the song."

Ellie tossed her pencil aside and stared angrily at Hannah. "I can't remember any songs."

"Bullshit."

"I can't remember any songs!"

Ellie had yelled, so Hannah yelled back. "Bullshit!"

Ellie couldn't think of anything else to say, and so she just kept yelling that she couldn't remember, and Hannah kept yelling that she was bullshitting, and finally, Ellie screamed "I can't remember any—"

When the lyrics came to her. She fell back (not realizing she had stood up) and Hannah did too, and Ellie sank to the ground and picked up her pencil and began to sing softly.

" _And I am screaming at the dice, 'Why'd you roll that way?'_

 _And I am pleading with the night, though it might be in vain_

 _So I will sing the only thing that I can say—_

 _Just because you know the weather doesn't mean you know the season_

 _Just because you know a heart break doesn't mean you know the reason_

 _And sometimes the right answer—_

 _Sometimes the right answer…is 'we don't know.'_ "

They stayed quiet a little bit after that. Ellie said, "I thought you thought that song was depressing."

Hannah shrugged as if they hadn't just been at each other's throats. "It is, but you have a nice voice. And _everything's_ depressing nowadays."

"I hear that."

Ellie picked up her notebook again to begin to write to Newt, but was interrupted again by infernal Hannah.

"Hey, Ellie."

"Yeah?"

"Is it just me, or is there a ghost standing there?" She pointed, and Ellie looked. A foot or two to the right of where Hannah was pointing she saw Edward, looking like a wraith from hell.

"Yeah, I see him."

"Oh good," Hannah said. "So I'm not crazy, then." She glanced over at Ellie and they both started laughing.

—

It was hard to tell time. Ellie and Hannah had their routine and they ran through it day after day after day after day after day and it was exhausting and Ellie hated it, just wanted it to stop, she wanted it to stop, and she couldn't even count the times she had looked in her bag to see the gun Teresa had given her however long ago it was—how long ago was it?—and thought about ending everything (the monotony, the routine, the heartache, the emptiness, the hallucinations, the sight of Hannah every goddamn morning and night, the craziness, the sunburns, the filth) but she had her promise to keep, and she had promised she would not use it on herself and she hated that, too.

Her mind raced and felt sluggish all at the same time, if she was ever lucid enough to notice it; of course some days were better than others when she could have conversations without the headache of making sense _,_ _all the time_ —a God-damned pain in the ass, and it always had been—and sometimes Ellie thought being crazy was better.

Sometimes Ellie thought being crazy was better. Better than what? Better than the daily pain that came with daily life at WICKED, better than remembering every night to sharpen her pencil and write meaningless symbols to Salamander. Better than Salamander this, Salamander that—and where had the name even come from? Better than stupid puns and stupid jokes and stupid songs trying to get stupid reactions from stupid people who didn't even have the smarts or decency to remember her name—

Of course some days were better than others when poor, Crank Ellie could think in straight lines and full sentences despite the repetitions or rhymes. Those were the days she wrote to the Salamander.

—

Some days were better than others.

Newt had had a very unhealthy period of grief, and sometimes, he looked at the beetle blades and wondered if Ellie was somewhere behind them.

Nick was dead. So was Stephen. One-and-a-half of the newest corpses were buried in the Deadheads. Alby was in charge, and Newt was second in command, his crazy story about the girl in the Glade already forgotten by all but Fred and Minho and Gally.

After Nick's death, Alby had been unsure of how to take the power. Newt had comforted the Gladers and encouraged him. The Gladers all knew what they were doing anyway. All he had to do was keep things going.

He and Fred had stopped talking about Ellie. There was no point now, not with Stephen's unexpected death by beetle blade.

Ben was heartbroken, inconsolable. He spoke to no one, because there was no Ellie to talk to.

Newt had begun to hate the Glade again. He missed Ellie's presence. He missed the days when he didn't know how lucky he was. He missed her face, her voice, her body. Sometimes he would lie down at night and wish he had memorized her—all of her. And then he would shake himself and remind himself that they needed to get out so that he could find out what had happened to her, and who had done this to them.

Minho and Alby were his best friends now, and he had begun to accept that the friend group he had had when everyone remembered Ellie—that friend group was gone. It was a shame, it really was.

All of it, all of it was a waste. Newt hated the Creators more than anything, but could not allow himself to dwell on it.

There was a new Greenie coming up in a week.

—

Some days were better than others. Ellie was using this day to write to Salamander and come up with a plan. Not much of a plan, just to handcuff herself to the bars in the window when she thought she had no more sane days left. She still had a pair of handcuffs. And she was crazy enough now to believe she would _know_ when that was.

Hannah was not back yet, so when Newt crouched next to her there was no one to ask to verify the hallucination.

"Who ya writin' to?" he asked.

"My boyfriend."

"Aw, shuck," he said, sitting by her. "You're still thinking about this guy?"

"Thinking is a stretch."

"I'm never going to find this, you know."

"Why not? Why not? You know where it is now."

"Because I can't remember you. I've moved on and I don't love you anymore."

Ellie laughed because she thought it was a joke, but the look on his face was not one of a prankster.

"You're breaking up with me? Now?"

"I tried to let you down easy a million times. You think you're only just going crazy? Oh, no, not from my perspective. You were always a crazy stalker who fancied herself my girlfriend."

Ellie's hand was somehow on her machete, and she swung it at his neck. The hallucination was gone too late for her to stop the swing, and so the rusted metal cracked and broke when it hit the wall full-force.

Hannah was in the entryway, but too focused on the routine, always the routine, the life-saving routine to notice Ellie's breakdown. Break-up. Whatever. Ellie dropped the broken machete and grabbed her pencil and began to work on the notebook again.

After god-knows-how-long, Ellie became aware of Hannah saying, "Scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch." Her bloodshot eyes were locked onto Ellie's pencil.

Ellie stopped and Hannah stopped, and then her eyes bored into Ellie's brain, and when she started again with her writing Hannah said, "Scratchscritchscratchscritchscratchscritch."

"Stop it," Ellie said. "Stop it stop it Stop It!"

Hannah did not stop, even when Ellie threw her pencil at her face. Ellie lunged forward at Hannah's throat and abruptly they were locked into a dirty fight where Hannah bit at Ellie's hands and Ellie clawed her throat and they tore at each other's hair and kicked each other's ribs and rolled around the alley knocking down boxes and drawing blood and hating each other so much that it hurt more than the pencil splinters in their hands and arms and more than the salt in their eyes and the sun on their backs. Hannah threw Ellie towards the wall, where she scrambled for her bag, and in seconds Hannah was pulling her backwards, away from it, only Ellie was tangled in its strap and her hand was on the gun and then it was aimed at Hannah, who froze.

Ellie was not seeing a friend now. Ellie was not seeing the girl alongside whom she had survived for so long in the heat of the Scorch. She was remembering that she had wanted this gun to protect herself from Cranks, and here now was a Crank in front of her with Ellie's skin under her fingernails.

She shot her in the stomach and Hannah howled like one of the Cranks they'd spent so long avoiding and fled unsteadily from the alley, trailing blood. Ellie stood and watched her go, kicking dirt after her.

"Crazy bitch," she muttered to Edward, who nodded sympathetically.

—

Ellie rarely slept now, paranoid of Hannah's revenge, and dreamt even less, and when she did she couldn't tell the difference, since all her dreams were now chained to what she and Edward now referred to as the alley of the shadow of death.

On a completely unrelated note, Newt now sat down beside her and she waited for him to say something. For the longest time, he didn't, and the desire to please him wormed its way into Ellie's thoughts and grew until it was unbearable.

"Say something," Ellie pleaded. He didn't even look at her. "Say something!" she begged again, and had no other way to convince him so she tried to put all the desire in her heart behind the two words. "Say something say something say something say something!"

Newt said nothing, just stared forward like a movie star paused onscreen, and slowly her two words meant less and less in her mouth and she trailed off into a whisper and gave up with a sob.

Then he un-paused. "How are you, Greenbean?" he asked softly.

Ellie touched her face. Tears? Why was she crying? "It won't stop leaking," she said.

Newt shook his head and brushed hair out of his face. "It never does," he said, stroking her arm to soothe her.

"I wish I knew where Max was," Ellie said. "He could make it stop leaking. He's done it before."

Newt smiled. "What about me? You don't think I could stop it leaking?"

"What are your open-hours?" Ellie asked, wheezing a laugh. They were both quiet for a moment, goosebumps coming up where Newt's fingers were trailing along her skin, and this time Ellie didn't need him to say something.

"You're killing me, Salamander," Ellie whispered, looking up at his beautiful clean face. "You're why I'm like this."

He put his arm around her. "I know." Their faces were close. He moved his fingers to her cheek. "It might be time for the contingency plan, El." She nodded and closed her eyes.

"Not yet."

"Okay," he said kindly, and Ellie felt him climb on top of her. He pressed his mouth into her neck and interlocked his fingers with hers, pulling her hand up. "Why not," he murmured into her ear.

"I'm too afraid."

"Hannah won't come back," she felt his nose move across her face until their lips were a centimeter apart. "You have enough food in arm's reach. You have your notebook to write me love letters. You have your machete to protect yourself."

He pulled her up and pressed her against the wall. "You have no need of fear." He kicked the gun away, across the alley and out of reach.

Anyone watching did not see Newt. How could they have? They did not see a lonely madwoman's mind's last desperate grasp for love. But they did see her hand against the bars, and they saw her handcuff herself to the bars in the window, turn her back on the world, and press her forehead against them. And they saw her look around as if having lost something that had been right in front of her, and tug on the handcuffs.

"You tricked me!" she screamed at them, at the alley, at WICKED, at Newt, at herself. "You tricked me! Come back! You tricked me!"

—

Ellie's in pain. Ellie's in pain, and Ellie did it to herself, didn't she, that naughty Crank/shank.

It made sense because it leaked and you have to remove what leaks and now my face is ribbons, pretty ribbons of red silk falling off my flesh and it still leaks but now at least it leaks a color, please hold my hand, I'm in pain again and where is that stinking salamander when you need something to hold your hand! I'll squeeze the life out of him for forgetting me or maybe not, maybe he's the one who remembered and maybe that's worse isn't it funny how paradoxes can form in an instant, so I just need to crush it, it's only a lizard so it won't care.

—

Max was doing little to no better. WICKED had purposefully placed the two of them in strategic places so that their groups could find them. Ellie was in an above-ground town, and Max, for Group B, was hidden in the tunnels below the Scorch—the Underneath, he'd heard it called. There was nothing to think about but Cranks past the Gone, and where to find light, and where his next meal would come from. He tried to starve himself a few times but couldn't bring himself to it. When areas where light spilled into the tunnels from above became too dangerous, Max grew accustomed to the dark and kept himself company with hallucinations and show-tunes. When he couldn't remember the next words he would sing the same phrase over and over again.

Max had never been afraid of the dark, and was even less afraid of it now that he had seen Grievers. When Cranks emerged from the abyss-like tunnels he cackled and asked if they thought they scared him, demand an answer from them long after they were dead. Bodies began to pile up around him and he made them his show choir. One of his mad projects was to clean the flesh off one of their skulls so that he could puppet it in duets. He hung other bodies from the ceiling and kicked at their legs so they would dance with him.

In the worst moments, he thought of Ellie and of Marie, and tried to find his way out only to run across a hostile Crank and kill it like a rat and have to drag its body all the way back to his stage and find a place for it.

Ellie would have killed him if he'd found her. The Madness had made her wrathful. Not unlike a Berserker of old, she hurled whatever she had at anything that moved, and when nothing moved she sometimes turned on herself, yanked at her handcuffs until her wrist was raw. Once a Crank ran at her and she she used her handcuffs to strangle it to death, allowing it to collapse at her feet.

Both she and Max were now gaunt. Ellie was sun-touched and burnt, Max was a ghostly pale.

It was such a shame. Such a terrible waste of eyes. So few people face the monstrosities of the world and keep their beautiful eyes pure. Here were two teenagers stolen from their homes and thrust into a dog-eat-dog world and, having lost so much, had still looked into others' eyes and gave them much-needed hope. Two teenagers whose eyes had smiled when they looked at the one they loved. It was such a shame Max had begun to flinch away from light and such a waste that Ellie used her rusty and broken machete to claw one of her own eyes out.

Such a shame that so many of those they had given hope to were dead or mad, and so many had forgotten what their eyes had looked like before. Such a shame that, after everything they had endured, no one would ever see those eyes again.

—

Well, Ellie had been right, and the Gladers had not stayed in the Maze forever. WICKED's Phase Two had begun on time, and Marie and Newt were close to finding familiar faces.

Things were already terrible. The Gladers had been separated from Thomas and Brenda. Newt and Minho were doing their best to rally the Gladers' morale—it was apparently Newt's bloody job, now. _The Glue_. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Newt didn't trust Jorge very much, but he trusted Minho to watch him while he went out to scout around. Mostly he wanted a break. It was rash, he knew. He could be killed easily by Cranks who had nothing to lose. He saw a corpse of a young woman with faded blue hair and wrinkled his nose and turned away.

It wasn't that he was trying to _find_ Ellie, or get killed by a Crank; he had other things he could live for. He had Thomas, and Minho, who both needed him. He had the hope for a Cure, the hatred for the Rat Man. He was out of the Maze, not that things weren't terrible anyway. He was feeling real sunlight on his skin again, harsh as it might have been.

Misfortune turned him around the corner to Ellie's alley. He stopped dead in his tracks.

There stood a ghost, the left side of her face locked in an ugly scab and the right harshly defined by malnutrition. Her shirt was torn and her skin blistered, and she was singing tunelessly and without rhythm.

He barely recognized her. The part that did recognize her thought he was losing his mind. Still he couldn't stop himself from saying her name.

"Ellie?" His voice choked up too late to stop him from saying it. Her head jerked and twitched until she was looking at him. His blood chilled when her eye focused on him and its hardened stare did not change.

"Ellie? Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. Ellie's not here right now. Ellie was Removed. HAH!" She gave a sudden, loud, bark of a laugh. "That's a wicked word for it! Removed!" She lunged forward like she was going to punch Newt, or claw at his face, but with a jerk was stopped short by her handcuff. Still her hand reached at him and she emitted a guttural growl. "Nice to meet you! Ellie's not here right now."

"I thought—" Newt pressed a hand to his eyes. "You were dead. I thought I'd never see you again." Deep down he knew she was gone, she was still gone and this was a cruel trick WICKED had used her to play on him. There were bodies at her feet, for God's sake. This could not have been Ellie.

"Oh, but she saw you again," Ellie sneered. "She saw you and saw you and saw you, even after she got here, she saw you. Can I tell you a secret? She was MAD for you!" Ellie laughed, and it didn't reach her eye. "Silly salamander, she _killed_ for you! Ellie's not here right now."

Newt looked down, unable to look at her anymore, and saw the notebook. And then he saw the gun she had kicked across the alley, somehow by his feet now. He knelt to pick the book up, keeping just out of her reach and opened it.

 _My Dear Salamander,_

 _I hope you already know how much I love you, but I will say it again._

He fell back against the brick wall and looked up at her. "Ellie…bloody hell, what did they do to you?"

"Ellie's. Not. Here. Right. Now."

"If you're not Ellie, then who am I talking to?"

"A crazy person," Ellie hissed, practically foaming at the mouth. "A crazy, crazy crazy CRAZY person. And who is the crazy person talking to? Who, who does the crazy person talk to?" She waited half an instant before cutting Newt's answer off with the punchline. "HERSELF!" She cackled madly, and jerked her arm, again stopped by the handcuffed. Her teeth bared, and her mangled face snarled at him. "Ellie's not here right now."

Newt couldn't watch her. He couldn't look at her. He couldn't be here. "I'm sorry," he said, tears still slipping out of his eyes. He stood up from the wall and began to leave.

 _Coward,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. He stopped.

"Coward," Ellie spat at him, and she began yanking at her handcuffs. "COWARD! COWARD! COWARD!" He turned to look at her one last time, to plead that she try to think, but saw blood spurt from her wrist.

"What are you doing?!" He yelled, and ran forward to stop her, but she lashed out at him manically, and he fell. She tried to pounce on him but her handcuffs prevented the movement and gave him time to escape to a safe distance, where he hoped she would stop hurting herself. He began to get to his feet while she shrieked and feverishly tugged at her arm with total disregard for her wrist. Newt watched her drop to her knees to scrabble on the ground one-handed, only to come up with the machete.

"Ellie, don't!" Newt yelled, but Ellie was past the Gone now. It was too late.

She reached up with the broken machete and began to cut her hand off with vicious stabs.

"ELLIE!"

Finally her hand began to give away and she ripped her arm away from the handcuffs, not skipping a beat before lunging at Newt, who she had loved, who she didn't recognize, and who she couldn't see for the blinding, maddening disease that put voices in her head.

Newt threw himself to the side and landed awkwardly on the gun, whose handle dug into his side like it was offering its services. Ellie slammed into the wall where he had been like a juggernaut and whirled in a circle before locking on to him again, her arm spraying blood.

Below them, in the tunnels where Group B had found Max, Marie could not find it in herself to kill him, and her friends were too late to save her.

The gun was in Newt's hand before he could process what he was doing by instinct. The recoil slammed his head into the ground and when he looked up Ellie was collapsing.

Blood poured from a hole in her chest and she convulsed. Newt lurched to his feet and stood away from her. On the ground, she choked and gasped and rolled onto her back, dropping the machete and clawing at her chest. She coughed up blood and suddenly Newt really recognized her eyes, and they were so in pain and so hurt, and the lump in his throat pushed a sob past his lips.

Suddenly she was back on the bed in the Homestead trying to recover from the Changing, and he loved her just as much as he always had and Newt went to her to hold her hand, and the light framed his gorgeous face the same way it had back then. Ellie looked at him and, shaking and gasping and too weak to fight back, allowed him to take it, clenching her fist as though she would break his fingers. But her strength faded quickly. Ben and Stephen and Nick and Dave and Frankie were still alive and she would see them as soon as she recovered, and she'd make a joke like she always did and everything would be okay for a little bit. Ellie jerked one last time and Newt closed his eyes and clasped her hand between his and pressed them to his forehead like he could pray. In a few moments she would wake up from the Changing and she would look at him and they would kiss. In a few moments…in a few moments…

But her hand was limp.

Her remaining eye was drained of light.

And it was over.


End file.
